tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32025450591955513622018-03-06T08:14:16.359-06:00Mi vida en Costa RicaThe contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-75095490226719812682011-05-30T14:46:00.001-06:002011-05-30T14:46:29.611-06:00Soccer!<div class="MsoNormal">The good news: We <u>finally</u> had our first soccer game the other day and we won!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">The bad news: I couldn’t be there to see it because I was in San Pablo.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I had pretty much given up on trying to organize a game for the high school because the rainy season had already started and every other time I tried I was always met with resistance. It was really frustrating because the kids in San Isidro are used to being promised stuff that never actually happens. The day before the game a bunch of kids came up to me saying that surely it would be cancelled because they never get to play for one reason or another. One kid bet me a sucker that the game would be suspended and I told him we would be even if we played and won both games, which we did!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The principal from Llano Bonito gave the team permission to miss the morning classes to play two games against us and my principal cancelled morning classes for the entire high school to watch and cheer for the home team! I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what it was really like, but with the two teams, all the students and teachers from San Isidro and whoever else was randomly watching, there must have been about 150 people there. That’s more than 10% of the population of the town haha. We won the first game 4-1 and the second one 2-1. We’re supposed to return the favor and travel to Llano Bonito for another game or two. As long as I’m free the day they go, I could even play with the team since it’s a friendly match!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Today there were four soccer games between San Isidro and San Pablo. The games corresponded to the “cycles” in the school system. The first cycle is 1<sup>st</sup> through 3<sup>rd</sup>, the second is 4<sup>th</sup> through 6<sup>th</sup>, then 7<sup>th</sup> through 9<sup>th</sup> and finally 10<sup>th</sup> through 12<sup>th</sup>. I thought we would get dominated since San Pablo is so much bigger and the kids always talk about how they want to play against other villages about the size of ours, but we held our own. We tied the first game, lost the next two 1-0 and 2-1, and won the final 4-3. Nobody really dominated in any of the four matches; they were all entertaining to watch. Apparently there’s no age limit on the fourth cycle so I can play next time if I want.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-7752774125254074572011-05-23T08:55:00.002-06:002011-05-30T08:56:10.044-06:00From Big Lick to Big Creek<div class="MsoNormal">I was reading the history of San Isidro the other day just for fun and found out that its original name was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Quebrada Grande</i>, or Big Creek. It was later named after San Isidro Labrador (Labrador means farmer) because the people wanted to pay homage to the patron saint of farming. For those of you that aren’t from Roanoke, or even if you are and never knew, Roanoke was called Big Lick for a while supposedly because there were a lot of sugar deposits that the deer would lick. It’s always fun to discover random connections like that!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I wanted to let you guys know about an opportunity that you could take advantage of to help support a new dance group this year in the elementary school in San Isidro. Five years ago, they formed a folkloric dance group comprised of students from 1<sup>st</sup> through 6<sup>th</sup> grades. They bought a dozen or so outfits and these outfits have been used year after year since the formation of the group. This year, they decided to start a popular dance group. It already has 33 members, has been practicing for over a month and just had its first performance today in the school arts festival. The only problem is that they don’t have any outfits for the group because there’s simply no money to buy them. I’ve been working with the school’s guidance counselor filling out a grant application for $500 from Kids to Kids, but even if we’re awarded the grant we’ll still be short a couple hundred bucks. That’s where you come in! I’m a little premature in writing about all of this because I don’t have the account I need quite yet to receive donations through the Peace Corps, but I thought I’d get the information out there while I was thinking about it and update you on the specifics later. Basically, I’ll provide you with a link to the Peace Corps website that allows you to donate money directly to me for my project and I will be sure to keep you all updated on its progress!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I was at the performance today taking pictures and videos of the group for the forms I had to fill out. Since they don’t have outfits yet, the boys wore white shirts with blue jeans and the girls white shirts with blue jean skirts. I thought that the popular dance group would be like breakdancing and stuff like that, but I think it’s just latin dancing that isn’t Costa Rican. It’s basically traditional dances that come from other countries instead of the truly Costa Rican traditional dancing that the folkloric group does. I took a video that I’m going to upload to YouTube. I’ll share the link in my next post. Chao!<o:p></o:p></div>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-9175558211970355242011-05-10T09:18:00.000-06:002011-05-16T09:20:44.921-06:00My first tico funeral<div class="MsoNormal">I was actually at the viewing of one of my students’ grandpa who had died earlier that day when we found out that the father of the elementary school principal had just passed away. They told me that the funeral would be the following day and there would be no school because of it (in Costa Rica, they don’t have all the chemicals we have to preserve the body, so when somebody passes away they have the viewing that same day and the funeral the following). I was a little confused about why school would be cancelled, as the father of the principal was not from San Isidro nor did he work for the school in the past, because the principal had missed a lot of days taking care of his dad and we never cancelled school. But I figured it was safer not to ask.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Today I went to the high school here in San Isidro since the elementary school was closed. I told the English teacher that I would only be there half the day since I was going to the funeral in San Pablo. She then told me that there were no classes in the afternoon anyway so that people could go to that very same funeral. I was a little surprised by the cancelling of classes in the elementary school but I was shocked that the high school was letting out early. Maybe it’s different in very rural areas of the States, but where I’m from maybe one or two kids don’t show up to school or leave early when a relative passes away or there’s a funeral, but we would never ever cancel school for that. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">My confusion grew when I heard that all of the teachers from the high school and the elementary school would be attending and we were bringing our school banners to place behind the altar. Admittedly, I haven’t been to many funerals in my life because I have such a small family, so maybe I’m not a good judge of what is typical in American society, but I found everything up to this point to be rather strange. At this point I went ahead and asked if the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">se</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ñ</span>or</i> that died had worked in the school system. Chuckling a bit, they told me no and realizing my confusion they began to explain that to them the principal of the elementary school is a colleague even though they work in the high school. And in Costa Rica, it’s customary to support your colleagues in whatever way you can; in this case, the principals and teachers attending the funeral and bringing their banners. I understood what they were saying, but as it was something foreign to me that I had yet to experience, I didn’t fully comprehend it until I got to the church and saw it for myself.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">In total, there were four institutions represented by their banners in the church: the elementary school and technical high school in San Pablo and the elementary school and high school in San Isidro. I thought maybe the schools in San Pablo had just sent their banners with a few representatives or something but no, they actually cancelled afternoon classes there too. And that’s no small feat because the technical high school has 800 kids from all over the region, so to communicate a change in the schedule and coordinate transportation for all of them is nothing short of amazing on that short notice. But just imagine classes being cancelled for 1000+ students for a funeral… As I looked around the sanctuary, I saw students, teachers and principals from all four schools, as well as the former high school principal in San Isidro who now works about an hour away. I also recognized a ton of people from a bunch of different places: San Pablo, San Isidro, Llano Bonito, San Marcos, Santa Mar<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">í</span>a and even as far as Frailes. The sanctuary was so full that people were crowding around the three entrances to watch the funeral.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Since it was my first tico funeral, I tried to pay as close attention as I could to the service, but it seemed like a typical mass and I got lost rather quickly. Not for lack of understanding because I’ve gotten to the point to where I can understand 75% minimum, but even when I’m listening to a sermon in English I zone out. How many times have you been to church and not been able to remember what the sermon was about a half hour later? It was the typical standing up and sitting down a million times, kneeling on the knee rail thing, holy water splashing all over and the holy smoke – or is it just incense? Never once was it mentioned who it was that had died or who his relatives were, what he did during his lifetime, etc. I guess just about everyone there already knew all that stuff anyway. This was another difference that struck me, because for me that’s what the funeral is about (I feel like I learned more about my dad’s dad during the funeral and reception from what friends and family members had to say than I knew up to that point). However, at the end of the service, the principal got up in front of everyone and began thanking us for coming and how his dad would have been happy to have seen how many people came to his funeral. He also talked about how grateful he was for his dad and how proud he was to be his son and how his dad did the will of God throughout his life. It was super emotional because he got choked up toward the end and almost everyone was crying by the time he finished. I choked back my tears for the time being, but I ended up crying in the second funeral when I saw my student crying. I don’t know why but I can’t watch other people cry without tearing up myself. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">When the service is over, they carry the casket to the entrance and set it down there so as people file out they can see the deceased one last time. That part is really emotional also because family members are weeping and practically throwing themselves onto the casket (there’s a pane so they can’t touch the body) saying their goodbyes… it’s hard to watch. Once everyone has left the church, they load it into the hearse and proceed to the cemetery, but slow enough for people walking behind to keep up. There’s the hearse, a crowd of people walking and then a procession of cars. I didn’t see the burial in San Pablo because I left with some people from San Isidro to go to the other funeral, so I’ll describe the burial in San Isidro. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">We walked from the church to the cemetery, which isn’t that far but it’s straight uphill so I was surprised by some of the old women that did it. Then they unloaded the casket onto a big concrete slab in a little outdoor pavilion where once again you could view the body. Someone from the church said a prayer and they took the casket to the grave to be buried. I’m not sure why, but they make a concrete container above ground that the casket fits into instead of burying it. The end is open and they slide the casket inside and then some guys with concrete and cinder blocks close it up. Then everyone goes home and the family does rosaries every night for nine days. The ninth day is called the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">novenario</i> and a ton of people go to the house to pray with the family. I don’t really understand the significance of the rosary in the first place, much less why they do it nine days in a row, but that’s what they do.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I guess what I learned through this experience is what I already knew about Costa Ricans: that they’re more community- and people-oriented than we are in the States. I don’t know if that’s a product of their culture or simply the rural area that we live in, but it’s evident in every social gathering I’ve been to. Later this week, I’ll be attending a wedding for the first time in Costa Rica and I’m sure I’ll see more of the same. More on that later!<o:p></o:p></div>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-25795253394138071792011-04-27T14:07:00.000-06:002011-05-09T14:12:34.063-06:00La Semana Santa<div class="MsoNormal">So I was a little confused about exactly where we were going and what we would be doing for the holy week, but it was still a lot of fun. My family kept telling me about going to the middle of nowhere and getting out of the truck to cross a river and walking a couple hours further into the countryside to a relative’s house. Naturally I thought this is where we would be staying for the whole week since it was the only piece of information I had to go on, but it was just a side-trip. I guess it’s the highlight of the week for them so that was the only thing they told me beforehand. They also told me that they were saving up a lot of money because the trip would be expensive. Maybe I’m naïve, but given that, I was expecting to go to the beach, eat out at restaurants, go to the movies; you know, a typical vacation. But I guess their idea of expensive is different from mine. When I think of an expensive vacation, I think of paying for gas, paying for a place to stay, eating out, going to movies or other activities, etc. Their idea of an expensive vacation is going a week without working. Other than gas and food, we literally didn’t pay for anything else. We stayed at my host mom’s parents’ house and didn’t leave the house for an entire week. I’m not complaining at all: I had a great time. But I want you to know what a vacation is like for a Costa Rican family. We’re going back for two weeks in June and it might be different when it’s not a religious week. They did the rosary thing a lot so maybe we didn’t go anywhere because of that, who knows?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">My brother and I refused to sit in the house and do nothing all day every day so we made some adventures with one of our cousins. The first day we went to a waterfall about an hour away on foot. The water was really cold but it’s so hot in that part of the country that it felt great. The second day was the infamous hike to the relative’s house in the middle of nowhere Costa Rica. I actually had been close to that place before when I took my trip down to the southern part for my PCV visit so I kind of knew where we were. The highway follows a river, which was huge when I went at the end of the rainy season last November but was practically dry last week. There are stories about people getting eaten by crocodiles in the past in this river before they had decent bridges. One of my cousins told me that they built the bridge first and later the water ran underneath… It’s not funny in Spanish either. After we crossed the river on a less-than-reassuring footbridge, we followed a dirt road up over a mountain, down the other side, across several creeks and through the valley until we got to my great aunt’s house. Apparently my dad has a tradition of running the seven kilometers and getting there first, so I decided to join him. Well we didn’t run the entire seven kilometers but we did arrive first! I literally sweat for two hours afterward. The place we went to was like a farmhouse with cows, pigs, chickens, ducks and other farm animals. They make a lot of cheese there, the kind that squeaks when you chew it, and it’s even better when it’s fresh like that. I never had squeaky cheese before in the States, so most of you probably don’t know what I’m talking about, but it’s no joke. I don’t really know how to describe it… it’s a unique texture for sure. We also cut down some trees that look similar to palm trees. I reckon that’s why they’re called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">palmitos</i>. Near the base, the inside is soft and edible and they can use it to make picadillo. It seems like a waste to cut down an entire tree for a part of it about the size of a softball but there’s no other way to get to it. On the way back to the highway I ran with my brother. My dad had to carry a bag so he couldn’t join us, but he must have given it to someone else to carry the rest of the way because he caught up to us close to the end! Imagine a 45-year old dude running up and down mountains in work boots haha…<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The third day we went to a different river an hour away in another direction. We left the house looking for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">guavas</i>, which are different from what we call guavas in the States apparently. The outside looks like a mix between a banana and a pea pod. It has the length and shape of a banana but it’s flat like a pea pod and inside the seeds are in a line. The seeds are coated with what looks like cotton candy and that’s the part of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">guava</i> that you eat and you spit out the seeds. Anyway, I thought we would only be gone for an hour or so, so I didn’t bother putting on sunscreen before I left, but we quickly gave up the search and decided to head for the river instead. Just like all the rivers in Costa Rica towards the end of the dry season, it was pretty shallow but we were able to find some spots where we couldn’t touch the bottom. I tried to stay in the shade as much as possible but I got burned pretty good on my shoulders. Not so bad that I had blisters like the other time, but still. While we were there, we ran into a Canadian guy that married a Nicaraguan and has two kids that are Costa Rican citizens. He’s been in the country for fifteen years or so I think he said. Normally I don’t like meeting other foreigners in other countries. I think it’s because the kind of people that travel a lot tend to have a lot of money and are kind of snobby. That’s not to say that everyone who travels is like that, but that’s been my experience with the majority I’ve met. But this dude was really cool. The type that actually lives and works in a foreign country, as opposed to spending a work or two sightseeing, knows what’s up. That’s really the only way to learn the language, experience the culture and to come into contact with the people as they really are. Someday when I’m rich and snobby I’ll be able to travel from place to place, but for now I’m fine with working a year or two in each country I visit. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The fourth day my family and I minus our mom went to the beach; she was doing a lot of stuff around the house so my grandma didn’t have to do everything for everyone. I probably shouldn’t have gone since I was already burned from the day before, but this time I was careful to put on a lot of sunscreen multiple times throughout the day. They told me that we went to Dominical, which is one of the more famous beaches in Costa Rica, but I’m pretty sure we stopped at a random rocky beach several miles before the real Dominical beach. For one thing, the beaches are supposed to be super crowded during <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">la semana santa</i>, but there was nobody at this one. Nor were there shops, restaurants, hotels, nothing… Naw, it couldn’t have been Dominical, but it was nice to have a whole beach to yourself. I think I experienced my first rip tide at this beach, or at least the first one strong enough to make me worry for a bit. I don’t remember ever not being able to touch the bottom where the waves break, but that’s how it was at this beach. I like riding the waves so I kept trying to make it out to where the waves were crashing but I kept getting to this point where I could feel myself being sucked out and I couldn’t touch the bottom anymore so I got scared and swam back in. And it’s a good thing that I wasn’t stubborn enough to go all the way out there because a group of teenagers from the States all drowned a couple of days ago here in Costa Rica. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The following day I didn’t do anything because I had a killer headache. They said it was because I had been out in the sun too long too many days in a row and I think they were probably right. Although I think it was more the heat than the exposure to the sun. The heat that I experienced in that part of the country is what I had imagined that the whole country would be like before I came. The part where I live is in the mountains and it gets pretty cold here, especially when it rains, but in Platanillo (where we stayed) I was sweating just sitting on the sofa. There you would take a shower just to get out of the heat for a little while and then you would immediately start sweating again once you got out. I told you already that I sweat for two consecutive hours after jogging; I don’t ever remember sweating for that long in my life. At night I could hardly sleep. I had to wait until the sun had been down for several hours before it was cool enough to even bother trying.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The rest of the week we just visited other parts of the family in the morning and played soccer in the afternoon. Going home was just as much an adventure as getting there was. Oh, I guess I forgot to tell you how David (my host brother) and I got there and back. Keep in mind that I thought we had to cross the river and walk two hours and all that to get to where we were going. Also, they totally exaggerated that part of the trip anyway… it wasn’t a bug and snake-infested swamp haha. I was under the impression that we would all be leaving together in the same car at two in the morning on Saturday, but if I had been thinking I would have realized that all six of us couldn’t fit in one car and much less with all our luggage. So they sent David (pronounced “dabeed” haha) ahead on Friday with the school principal who was going in the same direction and I decided to go with them. Our principal has a really nice car, even for American standards, so here he gets a lot of attention driving it around. It’s not a hummer but it looks similar; it’s a Toyota something or other, I’m not into cars. So anyway, we went with him and joked around the whole time about picking up girls, but of course we never did. He dropped us off in the big San Isidro that’s kind of like the capital of the southern part of Costa Rica. When I tell people I live in San Isidro, they confuse it with this big one that’s actually called San Isidro General. From there we caught a bus to Platanillo. The story doesn’t sound so crazy now that I’m re-reading what I wrote, but it seemed crazy at the time. It all happened so fast: they asked me if I wanted to go just a couple hours before we left. And I thought we were going to have to walk through a swamp for two hours to get to where we were going. Also, it seemed adventurous because I had never been anywhere outside of our little zone with my family, much less alone with my brother, and I think it may have been his first time making the trip by himself. Well, he was with me, but you know what I mean, gringos don’t count! <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">On the return trip, we had to spend several hours in San Isidro General waiting for our bus, so we walked a half hour to an aunt’s house. It’s kind of crazy for me to be part of such a big family. My <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">familia gringa</i> as they call it only has ten members but my family here has well over one hundred. It’s like no matter where we are we could walk or drive a few minutes to a relative’s house to visit. We ended up spending a few hours there eating and chatting with some old guy who must be related to us somehow. He kept asking me about the agricultural products of Virginia but as I’m no farmer I only got as far as corn and tobacco. I forgot peanuts! The bus ride was rather interesting. They weren’t selling tickets and the driver lost count of how many people he had let on, so when it got to be my turn to get on he told me to wait to see how many seats were left. Well, there weren’t any and he had already let my brother on so I thought I was going to have to wait in the terminal by myself for the next one but David came back to the front and was like “Hey, this American is with me,” but in Spanish, of course. So the driver was like you’re OK but nobody else. During the ride, we started talking to these two ladies. I started talking to one because she looked like she could have been related to this teacher I know. As it turned out, she really was the sister of someone I knew, but someone completely different from the teacher I had in mind! And David was talking to this other lady just because they were sitting beside each other and she turned out to be the neighbor of the aunt that we visited in San Isidro General. Costa Rica is tiny haha.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Well I can’t say that what I experienced was a typical <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">semana santa</i> for other Costa Rican families, but that’s what my family does every year for it. I’m already looking forward to next year!<o:p></o:p></div>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-87299902312031741472011-04-12T22:30:00.000-06:002011-04-12T22:30:28.311-06:00Time Flyin'<div class="MsoNormal">I can’t believe it’s already mid-April. And before I know it, we’ll be in May because next week is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">la semana santa </i>(holy week) and my family is taking me to Perez Zeledon for eight days to visit the extended family. The last two weeks in March, we were in San Jose for in-service training and the first two weeks of April have been short weeks with holidays and special meetings and other things keeping me out of school. Time has been flying… <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">So Easter is coming up and in Costa Rica they celebrate it for an entire week. Not everyone has the whole week off because the most important days (Friday and Sunday) aren’t until the end, so most people have to work Monday – Wednesday. I went home for Christmas, so I don’t personally know what it was like, but my friends tell me that it was anti-climactic in comparison to Christmas in the States. So I imagine that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">la semana santa</i> is sort of like their Christmas: the biggest holiday of the year, in other words. And if you think about it, it makes sense that Easter would be more important than Christmas. After all, it wasn’t Jesus’ birth that was most important, nor His death, but His resurrection. But it’s still weird!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I thought I might explain a little more about what I do outside of the schools. I enjoy teaching English and helping the teachers here, but what interests me most are projects in the community. They’re a lot more varied than just teaching English all day and I get to meet a lot of new people and learn new things in the process. I’ve already written about my boys’ soccer team I believe, but right now I’m in the process of forming a girls’ team, also. According to my principal, I needed to issue permission slips because it’s not culturally acceptable for girls to play soccer. I think it’s just a better-safe-than-sorry scenario. The female P.E. teacher in the elementary school is going to help coach the girls’ team with me.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Yesterday I went to a meeting of the Boy Scouts in San Pablo to see what a typical meeting is like and to talk to the leader and the head of the committee that’s in charge of the troop. We went on a short hike to a clearing where we ate some snacks, played some games and sang some songs – it was a lot of fun. I didn’t really get the chance to collect all the information I needed, but I’ve come to realize that sometimes it’s better to just relax and experience something new than to go into it full steam asking a million questions and not really interacting with the person. I learned a lot more from watching and participating in a meeting of the Boy Scouts than I could have in ten interviews about it. Now I just need to find a few people that are interested in leading the scouts in San Isidro if we can get a group formed.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Tomorrow I have a meeting with the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Asociaci</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ó</span>n de Desarrollo</i> (Development Association) to talk about the possibility of building a gym here in San Isidro. They turned in the paperwork for the project a few years ago and after sitting in bureaucracy forever it was finally rejected due to the government’s lack of funds. We’re hoping that some of the grants that I have access to as a Peace Corps Volunteer will help us get it approved this time. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I have a couple other things going on with some teachers in the technical high school in San Pablo. Remember that I wrote about how the high school teachers in San Isidro have to teach all kinds of other classes other than their specialty because the school isn’t big enough to have its own counselors, etc. Well, in the big technical high school, there is one teacher that teaches the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">proyecto social</i> class to the entire school. She has 800 students from all parts of the region. I’m working with this teacher to figure out a way for the students that come from places outside of San Pablo to do their projects in whatever village they come from. And specifically the ones from San Isidro, for obvious reasons. The kids in the 10<sup>th</sup> grade have to do a special community project for forty hours, so maybe I can put them to good use doing a recycling project or something, who knows?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">There’s another teacher in San Pablo that I’m talking with to try to get a website created that would allow teachers from all over Costa Rica to share resources and ideas they have for their classes. He’s an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">inform</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">á</span>tica</i> teacher, which means he teaches computer classes. At first, we were talking about having the kids make the website as their end of the year project, but this guy actually makes websites for a living and he was telling me that he could make it better and faster; in a week’s time he said. It’s cool because it coincides with a project that some other TEFL volunteers are doing, which is to put together a book of resources that Peace Corps volunteers and their co-teachers have come up with. They want to put this book together and send it to all the other TEFL volunteers and the teachers they work with to have a hard copy as a resource for years to come. What I want to do is digitize it and put it on the Internet for others to use and to possibly add to it. The website would be for teachers of all subjects, although I think it would be used primarily by English teachers due to the (hopefully!) high level of content of English resources. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">After holy week, I’m supposed to start teaching classes in the technical high school for kids that come from areas where there aren’t English teachers in the elementary schools. These kids go through six grades in their elementary schools with no English whatsoever and then they’re thrown into classes with kids who have had English and they just clam up because they’re scared to make mistakes. It will be good practice for when I start my community classes in May because I think a lot of my students will have little or no prior knowledge of the language. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">So it seems like I’m busy, and I am, but sometimes I wonder what I’m actually getting accomplished, if anything at all. I do a lot of talking but I haven’t done a lot of <u>doing</u>. It would be great if all of these projects came together and fell into place but maybe I should pick one or two and focus on them until they’re complete. The good thing is that sustainability of projects is emphasized a lot in the Peace Corps, meaning that I’m not supposed to do all this stuff on my own. It’s better for me and the community if I find people to take charge of my projects because it empowers them to do it on their own in the future when I’m not around anymore. And it keeps me from going crazy trying to be in charge of a million things at once!<o:p></o:p></div>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-60211351997243067172011-03-27T12:36:00.000-06:002011-03-27T12:36:22.601-06:00Super BusyI can't believe a month has gone by and I haven't written anything... A month of school and I haven't told anyone anything about my schools, my teachers, my students, the education system here in Costa Rica, nothing. In my site I don't have the time or the Internet to blog often but luckily I'm in San Jose for another week of training and have plenty of both! This week of training is referred to as In-Service Training (IST) in the Peace Corps world and it signifies the three-month mark of your service. For the first three months in your new site, you're supposed to take it easy and get used to your new surroundings, get to know the people, make friends, etc. Unfortunately for us TEFL volunteers the school year started in early February and that time of relaxing kind of went out the window.<br /><br />I have three schools that I work in every week and a couple others that I visit from time to time if my schedule allows. I work in both the elementary school and high school in my town and another high school in the big town close to me. Each of the schools in my town has roughly 100 students and one English teacher while the other high school has 800 students and 7 English teachers. The bigger high school is a technical high school, which means that the kids that go to that school learn special skills, almost like majors in college. And they have to go there for an extra year to finish the program. Also,<i>&nbsp;</i>I should point out that Costa Rica doesn't have middle schools like we do in the States, so normal high schools go from 7th to 11th and technical schools to 12th. I think they are like colleges because for the first three years they take academic classes and in addition they take English and French and classes from the majors to decide which one they like. They even have to apply to get into a specific program, just like we did in college for our majors. It's pretty cool though. The majors they have are accounting, wood working, computers, secretarial management, tourism, and architectural drawing. Other technical high schools have other programs, but those are the ones in mine.<br /><br />The schedule in the technical high school and the elementary school is pretty straightforward, but it's wacky in the high school in San Isidro. The technical high school goes from 7:00 - 4:10 everyday. The elementary school goes from 7:00 - 2ish everyday (I don't really know because I'm never there past lunch because the English teacher works the mornings there and the afternoons in another place). But the other high school's schedule is just crazy. There's five grades, five teachers (English, Math, History, Science and Spanish), a principal, a cook and then no one else. There's no janitor, no gym teacher, no counselor, no computer teacher, no art teacher, nothing. So what happens is each teacher is assigned a grade and they have to teach classes called <i>guia</i>&nbsp;(guide - like a counseling class I guess, they talked about feelings the one time I saw it), <i>desarrollo personal</i>&nbsp;(personal development - pretty much whatever the teacher feels like teaching that could help develop the students; it could be art or computer classes, whatever) and <i>proyecto social</i>&nbsp;(social project - a volunteerism class basically, although it's not voluntary). I think it would be a lot more efficient for them to hire one teacher to go around to all the grades and teach all these extra things so the teachers would have more time to plan for their respective subjects, but I doubt the ministry would want to do that. Anyway, to try to make a long story short, the high school in San Isidro starts everyday at 7:00 and then each grade has its own schedule. From what I've seen, the earliest they get out is at lunch and the latest is 3:30. However, a grade might have all Science classes in the morning and nothing in the afternoon and if the Science teacher is sick or something then all the kids just go home because there's no one else to teach them that day. As it turns out, the English teacher I work with there only teaches English in the mornings and then her afternoons are full of all those extra classes. Which is problematic for me because the elementary school teacher also only teaches in the morning. That's why I started visiting those other two schools I mentioned before because it makes more sense for me to work in the high school in the morning and visit another school in the afternoon than to work in the elementary school in the morning and then sit in an art class in the afternoon.<br /><br />There are a ton of things about my job in the schools that I haven't described at all... but I'm already tired of talking about school haha, so let's move on to the more fun things that I'm doing. I started a boys' soccer team in my high school and we've been training three days a week after school. I was astonished that there wasn't already a team because soccer is so huge here and almost every single kid plays it from a young age. I really enjoy hanging out with the guys and playing soccer, but the difficulty is motivating them to practice without having games planned in the near future. We started with about 25 kids the first couple practices and recently we've been getting ten or twelve. So what I've been doing is going around to other high schools and talking about the possibility of playing friendly matches together, but this poses all sorts of other problems. Namely finding a time to play, transportation and that other schools also don't have teams. Kind of important.<br /><br />I never realized it until I spoke with the lady in the regional office of DINADECO (an organization that helps Associations of Development with their projects), but the Association of Development in San Isidro is trying to build a gym, which is exactly what I want to do, too! I haven't had a chance to meet with them yet, but I'm really looking forward to the possibility of working with them. Apparently the governmental process for doing these projects is really slow, like years of paperwork and waiting for an answer. And supposedly they had been working on a gym once before and got all the paperwork turned in and everything, but it got denied after three years. Part of our training during IST is on the different organizations that can help us with funding and on how to write grants in Spanish, so hopefully we can start the process over again and get it approved this time!<br /><br />After IST, I plan on starting my community classes in San Isidro. Part of the reason I waited was because I wanted more time to get to know my community before I became too busy to do anything else but teach English. The other part was simply that I wanted to learn from others' successes and mistakes. All of our classes are completely free because we don't want to exclude anybody from them, so my idea was to have my students volunteer their time working on one of my projects instead of paying me. It will help the community and hopefully limit my class sizes to only those who really want to learn. Other volunteers have classes of like 40 or 50 and that's something I definitely want to avoid.<br /><br />I think those are all the major things that I've been doing. Lots of English, lots of soccer. I'll try to expand more on my job next time. And if there's any questions that you want answered feel free to leave a comment or email me. Pura vida!BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-89379387387250034242011-02-24T18:26:00.003-06:002011-02-28T18:29:43.341-06:00Burnt to a Crisp<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Three weekends ago, all of the volunteers from the Central Valley region went to Turrialba to raft the Pacuare River for our regional VAC meeting. I don’t remember what VAC stands for but it’s a committee of volunteers for volunteers. They put together a lot of trips and activities for us all to come together and get to know each other better.This trip cost about $60 per person and it included the rafting, transportation and lunch made by our guides. They dragged one of the rafts onto the land and flipped it over so they could use it as a table and they prepared lunch right there on the river for us. We had tuna tacos if I remember correctly; it doesn’t sound too appetizing but trust me, after a couple hours of rowing, you’ll eat anything. It was actually really good and everything was really fresh because they cut up all the tomatoes and avocados and everything on the raft-table. And for dessert we had Chikys! Chiky is a brand of cookies; they’re rectangles with one side being chocolate and the other just cookie.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">&nbsp;The Pacuare River is one of the world’s top 5 rivers to raft and it was awesome! It has mostly class 3 and class 4 rapids and there’s a long slow part where you can jump out of the raft and just float for a good while. Also, we stopped and went ashore for about a half hour to a nearby waterfall. The water landed on a huge stone step that we were able to swim to and sit on; it was pretty cool.The water hit you hard enough that it kind’ve hurt! It was a fun trip and a great experience and I would definitely recommend rafting the Pacuare to anyone that comes to Costa Rica. It’s affordable and worth every penny: we rafted for a couple hours or so before lunch and another hour after. It had been a while since I had gone rafting and I haven’t gone many times, but I’m pretty sure this was the longest of the trips I had been on previously and easily the most fun.</span><br /><span lang="EN-US">&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I’ve spent the better part of the last two weeks with a second-degree burn on my back.The same cousin that I took with me to the mountains wanted to go to the creek and build a dam so we could have a little pool to swim in. It seemed like a good idea at the time and we definitely had a lot of fun doing it, but ten days of pain makes me think otherwise now. I put sunscreen on at the start of the day and reapplied to my face and neck halfway through but I never reapplied it to my back. I have a theory that my host sister didn’t put nearly as much on my back as I needed, but it’s my fault for having my shirt off for that long and sleeping for an hour or so on a rock wasn’t very smart either!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The dam we built wasn’t as good as the ones I used to build with Heath and Andy but it served its purpose. With my friends in Roanoke, we were always really careful to build our dams with rocks that fit each other like a puzzle so not so much water got through. It’s easy to just throw a bunch of rocks in a pile but if they don’t fit together just so, the water will rush between them. Grass clippings and leaves are great for filling all the tiny holes that you’ll inevitably have among the rocks. I was hoping to build a sweet dam like in the old days, but my cousin preferred to just throw a bunch of rocks in a pile. Even so, we managed to get the water up past our waist at the deepest part.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The aftermath was devastating though. Interestingly enough, I wasn’t burned at all in any other part of my body – not my face, not my neck, not my shoulders – nowhere except for my back. And burned it was. The first day it was just really red, almost purple, but it didn’t hurt. From the second day until a day or two ago it hurt a lot and I had tons of little blisters and a few big ones. One was about as big as my fist and was completely full of water. It almost looked like one of<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3202545059195551362&amp;postID=8937938738725003424" name="_GoBack"></a> those bags that goldfish come in sometimes. It’s almost fully healed now, but it’s still red and feels warmer than usual and I have several scabs down my spine where I got burned the worst. I guess when I laid out on the rock, the skin around my spine was exposed a lot more than when I’m standing and maybe it’s more delicate because of that. At least the pain is gone; now it just itches like crazy haha!</span></div>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-11930581728459404782011-02-09T18:25:00.000-06:002011-02-28T18:26:18.245-06:00Presentations<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I think I’ve mentioned before that our counterpart here in Los Santos, the regional assessor of English,Manolo, is a very powerful man and that he was instrumental in bringing the TEFL program not only to this region but to Costa Rica itself. Needless to say, we all feel very lucky to have him because he’s set up so many meetings for us and he provides us with the support we need to do our jobs well. We’ve already met most of the teachers we’ll be working with and visited most of our schools. However, sometimes it can be a bad thing for your boss to be so active and interested in your project because sometimes you might have to present yourself in front of seventy principals – in Spanish. And that was just one of our meetings this past week and a half.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our first meeting was in a pizza place in Santa Maria with the regional assessors of the other subjects and the supervisor of the assessors. We had two hours to tell them all about the Peace Corps, the TEFL program, why we decided to be volunteers and what we want to do in our sites. In typical tico fashion, the meeting started a half hour late but we still ended a half hour early. Everyone knows that it always takes way less time than you think it will to say something you’ve written for a presentation, but as it turns out, it’s a lot worse in a foreign language! I think it took me an hour to write what took me only five minutes to say. I shouldn’t have been as nervous as I was, because everyone here understands how hard it is to learn English, so they’re really gracious about our level of Spanish. But I couldn’t help but be nervous introducing myself in Spanish to the region’s highest level of educators.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Also present at our first meeting were the three county administrators. Each one of us got to meet the man or woman that is in charge of all the schools in our respective county. That’s the cool part about the meetings: after you’ve introduced yourselves and gotten the hard part over with, you get to meet all these powerful people that can help you later on. Everyone seemed like they were excited to have us there and were thinking of ways they could work with us. In my presentation I told them that I like playing soccer, so one of the assessors was telling me that the teachers have a league and I could join his team!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The second meeting we had was the one with all the principals. In the pizza place, the meeting was just for us, but in this one we were just a small part of a much bigger meeting about all kinds of school-related stuff. We met in a big gymnasium at a school in between two of the major towns here for a few hours. I probably could have understood what was going on if I had wanted to, but the four of us had just gotten back from a rafting trip and I was too exhausted to care. The superintendent had some things to say as well as the circuit supervisors and some other people. I have no idea what they were talking about but I can’t imagine I missed anything exciting! For some reason, I wasn’t so nervous to talk in Spanish in front of the principals. I don’t know if I was just too tired to be worried or what it was. Right before our part of the meeting, Manolo sang a couple songs, so I opened with a joke about how if it didn’t embarrass him to sing like that then I could at least say a few words in Spanish!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3202545059195551362&amp;postID=1193058172845940478" name="_GoBack"></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The third meeting was with some of the English teachers that we would be working with over the next two years. This was by far the most fun because we could talk in English and play games with our new friends. Of course, we said a few things about the Peace Corps, but our main goal was to just meet the teachers and have fun with them. I think we ended up playing Mafia for the last hour of the meeting! I met almost all of my teachers and they’re all really cool and I’m looking forward to working with them. I can definitely see myself hanging out with some of them after school or on weekends if they have time. The problem is that the single ones go home to other parts of the country to be with their families on weekends and the others are married with children. Also, their schedules just don’t really allow them to do a whole lot during the week. They work from 7:00 – 4:00 almost non-stop and without planning periods – ridiculous. Anyway, it was a huge relief to meet my coworkers and for them to be cool.</span></div>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-91953513706991611012011-02-03T18:29:00.000-06:002011-02-10T18:34:23.328-06:00Día de las Montañas<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">A couple days ago, on the first, my cousin and I went hiking in the mountains that surround San Isidro. I tried to get more people to come with me by telling them that the first of February is a special day in the States: “El Día de las Montañas.” Nobody believed me, and rightly so. Dario and I packed a lunch and started at seven so we wouldn’t be out in the sun during the hottest part of the day. We had planned on going to the highest mountain to take pictures and come back but once we were up there, we decided we might as well visit as many other peaks as we could and we ended up staying out almost the entire day. Amazingly, I didn’t get a sunburn because the Peace Corps gave me this really thick SPF 60 sunscreen; you only need one coat of that stuff for the entire day, even at the beach. We started at his house on the edge of town and walked back into the center where a road splits off and goes up in the mountains. It was asphalt for a couple hundred meters and then it was dirt and rock the rest of the way. The hardest part of the entire day was the initial ascent; after that we just followed the ridgeline from peak to peak. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">We came across a random soccer field way up in the mountains that they use for church retreats and family reunions and stuff. It was really nice, but it definitely seemed out of place and I still can’t imagine the people here hiking up there. I’ve never seen anyone walking around for the fun of it and everyone thinks I’m weird for walking, jogging and hiking. About the only form of exercise that people engage in here is soccer. A little higher up the mountain, we found some bee farms or whatever you call them. Not far from there we also saw a bunch of bees living inside of dead trees. My cousin was afraid of them at first, but I explained to him that they won’t mess with you as long as you don’t mess with them. Eventually, we had to leave the dirt roads to get to the top of the first mountain and we didn’t use another road until we came back down at the end of the day. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The tops of the mountains here are great places to take pictures from because they’ve cut down all the trees to provide grazing land for the cows. We visited several peaks and had different views from each one, but in every direction you look there’s always many more mountains one after the other. We must be right in the middle of a range here in San Isidro. I got a ton of great pictures of my town and the surrounding areas. From the northeast mountain, you can see another one of the villages I’m supposed to work in at some point in these two years: Llano Bonito. I think that translates to ‘Pretty Plain’ but it’s a joke here because it’s neither pretty nor flat. It’s basically strung out along a ridge and the people here say that even the soccer field isn’t level, haha. From another you can see this huge facility owned by the electric company that’s run by the government. And from the last one, the southeast one, you can see almost the entire Los Santos region, or at least all the parts that I’ve ever been to or heard anything about. The only major town I couldn’t see was Santa Maria because there’s a mountain in between it and San Marcos that blocks the view. So I couldn’t see where Bryson and Sarah live, but I could see Copey, almost at the top of the mountain at the far side of the valley where Angela and Rebecca live, San Lorenzo, where Kelsey lives, San Marcos, the biggest town in Los Santos, San Pablo, the closest big town to me, and a handful of other smaller villages. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">It’s really cool to be able to see where you live from high up like that. I could see all the parts of town that I’m familiar with and now I know of other parts that I still need to visit. All the major buildings are really noticeable from up there: the church, the soccer field, the salon comunal, the salon pastoral, the two-story house (there’s seriously only one here haha), the cemetery, etc. The salon comunal is a public building that the community uses for dances, concerts, parties and other gatherings. The salon pastoral is owned by the church and is used for similar church-related activities. The two-story house in town is actually my uncle’s house and we live right next door, so it was easy to find where I live from up there!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I was surprised that we didn’t see any snakes, but we did see a very small frog, lots of grasshoppers, butterflies, some lizards, cows, bees, hummingbirds, and a pack of what looked to me like raccoons or something very similar. Their tails were up in the air though… My cousin said that they’re called ‘ardillas’ in Spanish, but that means squirrels so I still don’t know what we saw and I didn’t get a picture either. There was this one part where the face of the mountain was completely covered in a really thick grass and there must have been several hundred birds flying back and forth. I’m assuming they were eating the insects that live up there, but it was National Geographic type stuff with that many of them zooming back and forth feasting on their prey. All we needed was a guide with a British accent to make it complete! It did seem more like terrain you would find in England though. Not that I’ve ever been, but it was like rocky highlands with grass up to your knees.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Towards the end of the day, we came across a herd of cows blocking our way to the next peak. They saw us from a mile away and just stared at us the entire time we carefully made our way around them further up the side of the hill. I would have never thought about it in a million years, but my cousin had to take his shirt off to go around them because he was wearing red! He also advised me to go above them instead of below because if they decided to chase us, they would never catch us going uphill, but downhill is another story… Later that day, I realized that I hadn’t been stared at like that since I came back from Korea!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">On the way back down, we kind’ve got lost. We knew the direction we needed to go (down), but the roads weave in and out of coffee farms and sometimes end abruptly. We followed a road for a good while and out of nowhere we turned a corner and there was nothing but coffee in front of us and on all sides. Instead of backtracking uphill, we figured as long as we kept descending we would get to where we wanted to go. Eventually we hit a creek and followed it down until we found another road. From there it was fairly easy to find our way back to town, but those roads in the coffee mountains are seriously like a maze. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">All in all, it was a really fun day and I’m already planning my next adventure. I want to walk from San Isidro to Frailes. My brother knows the way and he said<a href="" name="_GoBack"></a> it’s like eight or nine hours, which is about the same amount of time we spent the other day. And who knows, maybe there will be a Día de las Montañas Parte Dos!</span></div>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-79059475209162489192011-01-26T18:27:00.001-06:002011-02-10T18:28:51.383-06:00What´s Normal?<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">This is something that I’ve been wondering about for a while now but my curiosity has been intensified with my time abroad in cultures different from my own. I remember I started thinking about it when I came home for Christmas during my first year of college in New York and home didn’t feel quite like it used to when I lived there day-to-day for the previous eighteen years. I had only been gone for two months or so, but already I had adjusted to a different life. Or perhaps I was somewhere in between my old life and my new one at school. Either way, home just didn’t feel like home anymore. I think the vast majority of Americans move at least once or twice by the time they go to college, but I had never even moved houses my entire life, let alone cities or states. I think never having had that experience of a drastic change is what made the question of what it is to be normal so conscious in my mind. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">It’s weird. You leave your home for the first time and you expect time to stand still while you’re gone and for everything to be exactly as you left it, but things don’t work that way. Granted, things don’t change very quickly in Roanoke and things basically stay the same, but I think I’m speaking more to the attachment you feel to a place. Also, I think that the attachment you have to a place relies heavily on the relationships you’ve developed there. I think it’s only natural that as you move from place to place, or go from high school to college, that your current friendships begin to take precedence over your former ones and relationships tend to fade over time if you don’t keep up with them (I’m not talking about life-long friends – I mean acquaintances, people you were kind’ve friends with in high school, etc.). If you don’t believe me, simply think back over the years of your life, or the periods rather (middle school, high school, college, after college), and tell me if you’ve maintained all those friendships over all those years. It’s impossible. People come and go; there’s nothing wrong with it, that’s just the way it is. No matter how bad you want to, you can never go back to the way things were before. Our childhood homes, or at least the way we recall them, are long gone. And you can never go back to high school, although I have no idea why anyone would want to!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I’ve been blessed to have had a handful of friendships endure from elementary school and middle school to today, but I feel as though that’s the exception to the rule. We all still call Roanoke home since we haven’t technically made the transition to another permanent location, but we’re hardly ever there and never all at the same time. Between college, study abroad, grad school, and working overseas, my friends and I hardly live in Roanoke anymore, but where do we live? What’s normal for us? What’s normal for anyone? What length of time is necessary for a way of life to feel normal to someone? Will I ever feel normal in a foreign country, no matter how long I stay? How long will it take me to readjust to the States? Or will I ever? I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this one, but I’d like to explore it for a little while, at least until my head starts to hurt haha. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I think it’s interesting to point out that, in my opinion, it’s much easier for an expatriate to feel at home in the United States where the population is very diverse than it is for a white American like me to integrate into a homogenous country. I stick out like a sore thumb almost everywhere I travel: Africa, Asia and now Latin America. Even if I learn the language, adapt to the culture, make friends, start a family or whatever the case may be, everyone would still know that I was different. That’s not to say I wouldn’t be accepted in those places, but no one would <u>ever</u> believe I was from there. But what people from homogenous cultures often don’t realize is that the United States is so diverse in virtually every aspect of life that you really can’t tell if someone is a citizen or not just based on how they look. I’m not sure if my argument is that I’ll never be able to feel at home in a foreign country or simply that it would take a lot more time than it would in any random town in America. I really like it here in Costa Rica; my Spanish is coming along; I’m starting to make some friends; but I’ll always be the gringo in town haha. I guess it’s not such a bad thing.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I think that I’ll be able to get used to life in the States when I return; I think the difference will be in the way I see things. I don’t think I’ll ever again be able to subscribe to the fast-paced work, work, work lifestyle that so many Americans have. I can’t claim to be completely comfortable with the pace of life down here because it’s excruciatingly slow, but I’m slow-paced by nature and I think this pace suits me better. I also think that I’ll be more people-oriented when I return. It’s engrained into us from an early age that time is money and people rarely spend as much time as they should with their family or friends or neighbors just sitting and talking because it seems like a waste of time when you could be making money. At first it bothered me when I wanted a quick answer to a question from someone and then an hour later after drinking coffee and shooting the breeze I still didn’t have my answer. But it’s nice the way people take an interest in each other here. I’m not gonna go overboard and say that I’ll be a vegetarian by the time I get back, but my family here definitely eats a lot less meat than what I’m used to, and I’ve begun to realize that the amount we eat back home is so unnecessary. Don’t get me wrong, I love meat and there’s zero chance that I’ll refuse to eat it, but I won’t take it for granted so much. Maybe I’ll decide to eat it less often or in smaller portions or something. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Back to the original topic… maybe there is no such thing as normal. Or maybe each person has their own ‘normal’ and I just haven’t yet found mine. Certainly it’s not normal to be a Peace Corps Volunteer or to live abroad. I guess I’ll just have to settle for being different for now. Perhaps there’s something to be said for it.<a href="" name="_GoBack"></a></span></div>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-62390217278030835302011-01-24T18:02:00.001-06:002011-02-10T18:10:35.624-06:00Rice, Beans and Spaghetti<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">On the same plate.At the same time.It’s actually a lot better than it sounds after you get over the initial shock of the blasphemy. The first time I saw it, I was pretty taken aback but now that I’ve had time to think about it, it almost makes sense. I mean rice and beans are a given with every meal here like kimchi was in Korea, so if you want something else it still has to be served with the rice and beans. After a while you realize that food is food and you just learn to eat whatever you’re given. Having said that, I actually really do enjoy the food here and it’s not a problem for me at all. It’s not always very balanced but at least it doesn’t contain all the stuff that processed food has in it. I still contend that a rice-based diet is a great way to lose weight. Don’t ask me why, but it is from my experiences. I’m not going to lose another thirty pounds like I did in Korea simply because I don’t really have that much to lose but I had already lost seven by the end of the first ten weeks. Although, I’m pretty sure I gained it all back while I was at home eating turkey, dressing and mashed potatoes and gravy three meals a day for about a week and of course all the Christmas cookies and candies, haha. I was reading a book about being a Peace Corps Volunteer and it was talking about how men typically lose weight and women gain weight during their service. The theory is that food in developing countries has a lot of carbs and men’s bodies can process carbs a lot quicker than women’s and it turns into energy instead of fat for men. Also, there is a lot less meat in the diet and I guess men typically eat more meat than women back home. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Someday I’ll have to start taking pictures of my meals to show you guys but I feel a little weird about busting out my camera at dinner time. I feel like it might send the wrong impression, like I think the food is really strange or something. Speaking of pictures, I figured out why my pictures take up so much space and thus forever to upload. My camera was set to take pictures that could be printed out at size A3. I’m not sure how big that is, but they were taking up 4MB apiece and each one took several minutes to upload. Now I’ve got it set to e-mail attachment mode or something like that and each one is only 150KB and my memory card can hold about 45,000 more pictures now than it could on the other setting. The only problem is that I can’t go back and change my old pictures to the new setting. I’ll choose a select few of the best of my old pictures to upload and then once I’ve taken a bunch of pictures on the new setting I’ll be able to put as many up as I want and really quickly, too!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I’ve started the long, slow process of working on my CAT (Community Assessment Tool). My plan was to start interviewing my family, since they would be most comfortable with me and most familiar with who I am and why I’m here, and then I was going to introduce myself one Sunday at church. The first part worked out great – I’ve interviewed my host dad, his mom and one of my aunts and I feel like I already know a lot about my community. The other great thing is that they’ve been able to tell me who can answer the questions that they don’t know the answers to. I guess in a small town like San Isidro, it’s well known who is on what committee and who the town leaders are. The second part has not gone as according to plan, unfortunately. Last week there was no service, this past week my friends and I went to the beach to celebrate a birthday, and the following week is a special service for a sweet 15. Yes, 15. Apparently that’s like a coming-of-age thing here for girls. I’m not sure how much significance it carries these days but, from my understanding, in the past it used to signify that a girl was now a woman and she was old enough to marry and have children. I think it’s changing or has already changed in the cities, but here in the country it’s acceptable for girls in their teens to marry men ten, fifteen, or twenty years older. Also, teen pregnancy is really common here which makes sense if a lot of teens are married, but still… I was talking to one of my friends about it (she’s 19) and she said that she’s one of three girls left in her graduating class that hasn’t had a kid yet. Now that could be an exaggeration and I have no idea how many girls were in her class, but that’s still really shocking. Anyway, so the next service at the church is a special one for my cousin who is turning fifteen and the only people who are going are the invited guests to her party. There’s still going to be a lot of people there, but it’s mostly family from out of town which doesn’t help me at all. My new plan is to wait until the first day of school and introduce myself to all the teachers and parents because supposedly there’s some sort of meeting the first morning. I still haven’t gotten up the courage to complete the door-to-door survey portion of the information-gathering process. I’m not sure if it’s because I feel like my Spanish is inadequate or because everyone here thinks I’m a 16-year-old exchange student. San Isidro and surrounding areas have had a lot of foreign exchange students in the past, but they have never had a Peace Corps Volunteer or an equivalent from another program. People tell me I look young for my age, but sixteen?!?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The CAT is a huge pain, but I actually really enjoy talking to people about San Isidro and finding out about the community from a variety of perspectives. We’re supposed to ask questions concerning health, safety, education, water and sanitization, drugs, etc. It’s interesting because some of the questions are written specifically for very, very underdeveloped areas of the world. For instance, there’s an entire section on water with questions like ‘How many wells are there?’ ‘Does anyone here know how to fix the wells?’ ‘If there is no potable water nor wells, how long does it take to get to the nearest water source?’ ‘Do you boil your water before drinking it?’ I’m sure all of these questions are really crucial in other places, but here they have water systems similar to ours back home with an organization that oversees the aqueducts and a guy that lives here that can fix them. They haven’t relied on wells in like fifty years! The first two questions were ‘Is there potable water in the houses here?’ and ‘Do the majority of households have their own bathrooms inside the house?’ The answer was ‘Yes, every last one of them.’ So I said well… I guess I won’t be working with the water and they were like why would you? We have a guy for that.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The idea is that by the end of the process, I’ll know what my community needs, what they want, and how that fits into what I can provide with my skill set and also what the Peace Corps would like for me to do. The Peace Corps has a lot of initiatives with HIV/AIDS awareness, women’s rights, teen pregnancy, etc. to name a few. If I walked into my new community without asking anyone anything and started a whole program on HIV/AIDS, only to realize weeks or months later that the problem is almost non-existent here, that would be a huge waste of time and effort. One thing that I’ve found is that the people here are well aware of the lack of recreational activities here for the children. I think it would be a really great idea to start a gym or build a playground to give the kids here something to do with their free time instead of just watching TV. And I think it would receive a lot of support from the people here, which is really important if I want my projects to continue well beyond my time here.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">This past weekend, my friends from the Los Santos region and a couple others went to the beach at Manuel Antonio on the Pacific side to celebrate the birthday of one of us. We actually live really close to it if you look on the map, but the way the roads and the bus routes work, you have to backtrack to San Jose and then take a convoluted route past all the other beach towns to get to it. I think by car it’s only a couple hours but by bus it’s more like seven or eight. It was a really beautiful beach and there was also a national park with monkeys! Definitely worth the time in the bus. We left early Friday morning (I got up at 3:50 to catch the first bus out of my site) so we could get there in time to hit the beach for a couple hours before the sun went down. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but if I haven’t, the sun goes down here around 5 or 5:30 every day. The beach was really pretty and the waves were strong but not too strong; it was perfect. I didn’t even get a sunburn haha! For dinner, we found a really good Mexican place. It was so good that we ended up going back there for dinner Saturday night, also! Both nights I got two enchiladas and traded one for half of someone else’s burrito. The restaurant has their own hot sauce and it was so good that my friend, Angela, decided to buy a bottle. I thought about it, but of course I have two bottles of Marie here with me. On Saturday, we went to the national park. It was a beautiful walk through the forest and eventually you end up at a beach that’s more suited to Costa Ricans because it’s enclosed and there’s really no waves to speak of. Most ticos don’t know how to swim or the ones that do don’t know very well, so waves scare them and they’re always warning you about rip tides. My host dad even told me how to swim out of a maelstrom if I got trapped in one! At the beach, people were feeding the monkeys chips and other snacks so they could take up-close pictures. I got a short video of this one small monkey hanging upside down off of a low-hanging branch so he could grab chips out of people’s hands. On one end of the beach, this lady had hung her bags up in the branches of one of the trees on the edge of the forest. I still don’t know if the monkeys planned it this way, or if it was just coincidental, but two of them kind’ve led everyone away from the tree with the bag by running around and looking cute and whatnot. Then one of them sprinted over to the tree and started rooting around in the bags before anyone could make it back over there and stop him and he ended up with a bag of chips! He took it up into the tree and before long there was a huge commotion and you could see a bunch of leaves falling down and you could hear monkeys screaming at each other. Eventually all the chips fell down onto the rocks below and the monkeys had to gather them with their hands and their mouths and scurry back up the trees on two legs.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">On the way out of the park, armed with the information that monkeys like chips, one of my friends started feeding one of the monkeys. At first, it was just one cute little monkey and we were having fun taking pictures with him. Then, one by one every twenty or thirty seconds, more and more monkeys arrived on the scene. And they weren’t content to hang upside down from the trees and wait; they started running after us on the ground. Before long there were several on the ground and we started seeing more in the trees, a lot more. So we decided to get out of there – fast! Afterwards, we did a bit of shopping, hit the beach one last time, ate Mexican again and went home early Sunday morning. We spent a little bit of time at the Peace Corps office in San Jose because we needed to put our deposits down for a rafting trip coming up in two weekends. It’s the Saturday before Super Bowl Sunday, so we’ll be staying the night in San Jose after rafting and watching the game with everyone before we all head our separate ways again. But not to worry, we’ll all be seeing each other again at the end of March for ten days in San Jose for our in-service training :)&nbsp;</span></div>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-12406202654652803862011-01-19T17:52:00.001-06:002011-02-10T17:59:47.428-06:00Feria del Café<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">This past weekend was the long-awaited coffee fair in Frailes. It didn’t disappoint. There were tons of activities, lots of merchandise, food and snacks, a coffee-picking competition, fireworks shows,a circus act, concerts, and even helicopter tours! It’s by far the biggest event of the year in Frailes and the surrounding areas. I’m really glad I went and that I stayed the night Saturday with my training host family so I could be there for the entire two days. I got to see most of my tico friends from Frailes and several of my Peace Corps friends as well. Unfortunately, many of the Volunteers from my training group live several hours away and couldn’t make it up for the fair. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Most of the fair took place on the soccer field, although the coffee-picking competition was in a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">finca</i> and the helicopter took off from a different location. Along the perimeter of the field were stands with all kinds of snacks and merchandise pertaining to coffee and other traditional Costa Rican stuff. There were coffee cookies, coffee brownies, coffee candies, coffee pizza and, of course, just regular coffee. The coffee pizza didn’t really taste like coffee; it was just bad. There were also necklaces, bracelets, earrings and crosses made out of coffee beans. Everything seemed reasonably priced and there were several things I saw that I considered buying, but I’m sticking to my plan to buy the bulk of souvenirs towards the end of my service. That way, I’ll know even better than I do now what’s out there, what I want, how much I can get it for, what’s authentic and traditional, etc. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">It was cool to walk around the fair with my friend, Tyler, from the business program of the Peace Corps because a lot of the people selling merchandise there are going to be working with him since he lives in Frailes. So he was explaining to me how they make everything by hand and how it’s environmentally friendly and whatnot. They all seemed talented and creative, not to mention ambitious, so I imagine he’ll be able to do some great things with them and help them expand their businesses over the next couple of years. One thing they would like to do is start websites and expand their market beyond the Frailes coffee fair once a year and wherever else they sell the rest of the time – probably in markets in San Jose. I’ll share any links I get from Tyler so you guys can start buying stuff made from the world’s best coffee! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The coffee-picking competition was kind’ve anticlimactic. I guess I shouldn’t have been expecting too much since all you’re doing is just watching other people do a menial job but I thought it would be really exciting. I thought it would be an hour or two of intense picking, but as it turns out, the competition in Frailes is the finale of a series of competitions in other places and they only pick for fifteen minutes in each location. I got there right when it was supposed to start, but for whatever reason we had to wait an hour for it to begin; like everything else here, things just run on a different schedule than what I’m used to. Apparently, not only do you have to pick fast, but you have to pick the high quality beans. If you end up with a lot of greens or leaves and twigs in your basket, you get disqualified or have points deducted or something. They announced the winners of the competition at the end of the fair. There were three places for each sex: 3<sup>rd</sup> place received $100, 2<sup>nd</sup> place $200 and 1<sup>st</sup> place $300. Pretty decent considering that it would take even the best coffee pickers about two weeks to make $300. And slow people like me couldn’t make that much during the entire season, haha!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">One of the sponsors of the fair was Stihl and they had a competition to see who could cut the thinnest slice off of a log using one of their chainsaws. It was called ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">la galleta más delgada,’</i> which means ‘the thinnest cracker!’ A lot of guys tried to cut it too thin and were disqualified when their slice broke off halfway down the log. Tyler’s host dad was one of the participants and he opted to go last because he thought the chainsaw would do better after it had warmed up a bit. I knew Papillo was pretty handy because he constructed his own house, but I didn’t think he would cut the thinnest cracker, but sure enough he did! It was really quite impressive; it couldn’t have been more than a centimeter or two thick.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I was stupid and didn’t check my camera battery before I left so I wasn’t able to take many pictures. But there’s always next year and it should be even bigger and better!<a href="" name="_GoBack"></a></span></div>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-28718812397035445992011-01-10T17:54:00.000-06:002011-01-10T17:54:16.661-06:00Back in the CR!<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I’ve been back in Costa Rica for almost a week now and although I really enjoyed seeing friends and family back home, I’m definitely glad to be back. It was a little weird to fly back and forth like that. I’ve been to other countries and lived abroad before, but I’d never visited home in the middle of one of my trips and then returned to wherever I was. By the time I had readjusted to the States, it was time to return to Costa Rica.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">While I was home, I tried as best I could to keep up my Spanish but I was definitely rusty and unconfident when I first got back. I think I’m back to where I was, but I was a little overwhelmed the first couple of days. There was just a lot going on. I spent the night in my training community and visited as many people as I could before I had to leave the following afternoon and then I was off to my new site, San Isidro. So I had to pack all my stuff and say goodbye to a lot of people and then start over in a new place. A couple days later the other volunteers in my region and I had a meeting with the regional English assessor to talk about what our plan was for the rest of the month and a half we had left until school starts. The other volunteers had met a bunch of people in their sites and held meetings and were about to start teaching classes in their communities and all this other stuff… I just felt lost. I hadn’t even unpacked yet haha. After the meeting, one of my friends gave me some paperwork that was due in less than a week. We’re also supposed to be collecting information in a variety of ways and writing a 40-50 page diagnostic on our community. In Spanish, mind you. It was just a lot to handle in a short period of time, but I’m better now so it’s all good. I still haven’t really started on any of the things that I’m supposed to have done by the time school starts, but I’ve taken a few days to relax and get my bearings before I get going and I feel a lot better about everything now.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">This past week, even though it’s been hectic, has been really fun. Like I said before, I got to see a bunch of people in Frailes before I left which was really nice because it would have been a much more difficult and uncomfortable transition to go straight from home to my new site without seeing anyone I knew. I spent my first full day in San Isidro picking coffee with my host family, which I thought was fun and interesting but I can see how it wouldn’t be much fun to do every day. At first, I was picking the coffee bean by bean because I was worried about accidentally picking the green ones if I just tried shucking the entire string of them all at once. The red ones are ripe and the yellow ones are OK to pick, also, but you’re not supposed to pick the green ones because they’re not ready yet. The black ones are dried up reds and those you can pick, too. What makes it a little easier is that the green ones are still really hard and they stay on the branch a lot better than the others. So as long as you don’t pull too hard, you can get all the reds, yellows and blacks in one fell swoop without getting any of the greens. The other thing I had to get used to was the fact that it’s OK if you end up with a bunch of leaves in your basket because you can just pick them out at the end and it’s a lot faster that way than avoiding them the whole time while you’re picking. Anyway, I definitely picked the least out of everyone, including my twelve year old sister, but they all said that I picked a lot for my first time. I didn’t let them pay me for what I picked, but if I had, I would have made $7 for about 7 hours of work. That sounds pretty bad, but obviously the other workers pick a lot more and make a lot more than that. And considering that half the world is below the poverty line which is $2 per day, I think Costa Rican coffee pickers are doing just fine. It’s not exactly what I want to do with my life, but it beats a lot of other things in a lot of other places. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Before we had our meeting, the regional assessor took us to a coffee co-op for a tour of the facilities. Coffee is a huge part of the culture here, so it’s important that we have a good understanding of the process. The more we know about coffee, the more we can relate to the nationals and thus the more willing they will be to work with us and befriend us. I had already experienced the first few parts, which is picking the coffee, measuring who picked what by emptying your sacks into boxes called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cajuelas</i>, dumping the boxes into a big truck and then taking it up to one of the receivers. At the receiver, the coffee slides out of a chute in the back of the truck into a bigger box that equals ten <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cajuelas</i>. Two of those boxes equal a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fanega</i>. Someone has to keep shoveling the coffee towards the chute and once the box is full the worker at the receiver closes the chute and pushes a button so the bottom of the box opens up and the coffee falls into a huge pile and sits there until another truck comes to take it to one of the coffee co-ops. The guy at the receiver keeps track of how many times you fill up the box and then you get a receipt. At the co-op the coffee goes through a number of other steps to prepare it for roasting. There’s a machine that separates the part of the coffee bean that they want from the parts they don’t and from there the two piles go off in different directions. None of it is wasted, however, because they found ways to make good use of the entire bean. They figured out that they can make ethanol gas with the liquid part of the bean and the husk can be used as fertilizer. The actual bean continues on to be dried in the sun which takes about a week. And if it rains, everyone has to run outside and gather up the coffee as fast as they can. I’m not sure why they don’t just bring out a tarp or construct greenhouses or little pavilions made of clear plastic or something like that, but I guess they know what works best. After the beans are all dry, they put them inside for a few days to recuperate and they have to control the humidity in the room to ensure that the beans are as good as they can possibly be. Don’t ask me why they need to recuperate or how sitting in a huge pile in a building helps but it’s a step in the process so… haha. Then they’re ready to be roasted. They roast the majority of the beans to a medium roast because it’s the most popular but they also do light and dark. There are also four flavors of coffee in Costa Rica and the flavor depends on the altitude in which they were grown if I remember correctly. They are chocolate, vanilla, floral and the other I don’t remember. All in all, it was interesting to see the process from start to finish and I must say that even though I almost never drank coffee back home I’m getting to the point to where I drink at least two cups every single day here!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">This past weekend there were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fiestas de verano</i> (summer parties) in my site. It’s not really supposed to be summer down here because we’re in the northern hemisphere but they call the dry season summer and the rainy season winter. These summer parties are a lot like county fairs or carnivals except with dances at night. There are a lot of farm animals (cows, sheep, goats, hogs, etc.) and a lot of carnival games and food. They start the dances around 8 and at first it’s kind’ve traditional and a lot of older couples dance for an hour or so but after they leave they play more modern music and the dance has more of a club atmosphere. The first night, on Saturday, none of my friends from Frailes were able to come, so I ended up dancing some with my host sister and her friends and a little with my brother and his friends. We didn’t leave until around midnight which is super late here because we normally go to bed around eight or nine so we can get up at five and be in the fields by six, but these parties only happen once a year so everybody stays up for them. Yesterday, a few of my friends came up for the fiesta and we hung out for a little while until the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tope</i> came. A <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tope</i> is a group of horses that rides from a good distance to its destination at one of these fiestas. Then they have a horse show before they sit down for dinner. After dinner, there is live music and dancing.We decided to leave after the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tope</i> and drive over to a bigger city and see what was going on at their party. There was a lot more stuff to do and there was an outdoor concert, as well. It was a cover band playing the most popular songs from Latin America, none of which I knew, but it was still fun. <a href="" name="_GoBack"></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Today I haven’t really done much of anything except write this post and I finally got around to downloading my pictures onto my laptop. By the time I publish this, I should have some pictures up on Picasa and the link will be on the right. Enjoy!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">P.S. It´s going to take me a while to get a substantial number of pictures up... the upload time is really slow</span></div>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-34129878326325013642010-12-29T14:01:00.000-06:002010-12-29T14:01:17.973-06:00Home for ChristmasPeace Corps Volunteers aren't supposed to&nbsp;leave their sites&nbsp;during training, the first three months of their service or the last three months. However, I was allowed to come home to see my grandma before she passed away on the 23rd. She had a rare and aggressive form of cancer called sarcoma. We had no idea anything was wrong before I left and then all of a sudden she was in the hospital and her health deteriorated so rapidly that I just barely made it back in time to say goodbye. We'll miss you gramma.<br /><br />Right before I left to come home, we had our graduation from training. It's called the swearing-in ceremony and we had to take an oath at the ambassador's residence. The oath goes something like this:<br /><blockquote>"I, (your name), do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, domestic or foreign, that I take this obligation freely.&nbsp;And without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. And that I will well and faithfully discharge my duties in the Peace Corps, so help me God."</blockquote>Two of our fellow Volunteers, one from each program, went up and gave a short speech thanking our host families for everything they've done for us. Then we all went up one by one to get our certificate saying we completed our training and to get our picture taken with the ambassador. Afterwards we had some time to take pictures with all our friends and family before we all went our separate ways to our sites. When I go back in January, I'll be close to five or six other Volunteers and the rest I'll just have to wait until our In-Service Training in March to see them. <br /><br />It's surreal to be home right now, especially during the holiday season and having come home so quickly and unexpectedly. I remember coming home from Korea and it felt so weird, but we had been looking forward to it for so long... this time I got an email telling me to come home and the next thing I knew I was on a plane and back in my own home, albeit with no bed but that's another story haha. It's definitely been comforting to see friends and family during this time. As always, my thoughts are jumbled and I can never stay on one topic, but I just wanted to mention that it's really cold here. And there's snow. We had the coldest day in 15 years in Costa Rica and it still didn't get down to freezing. It was probably in the 40s or something. Usually you see old women bundled up like there's a blizzard outside when the temperature is in the 60s early in the morning, so 40 is pretty darn chilly for them. It's nice to see snow again. I missed last year's 'Snowmageddon,' unfortunately. My tico friends want me to bring some back with me, but I think pictures will have to do :)<br /><br />Aside from the cold, another thing I've noticed is that we don't eat rice at every meal, or at&nbsp;any actually (I haven't had a single grain of rice since I left CR... and I'm OK with that haha), and we use forks here. Actually, I lied. I had a ton of rice with my Chinese the other day. The first time I got change since coming back, I thought for sure they had dumped a bunch of pennies in my hand because they felt so tiny. The coins in CR are so huge that even quarters seem really small and light&nbsp;in comparison.<br /><br />In my spare time here, I've been memorizing the national anthem of Costa Rica, talking with my tico&nbsp;friends to keep up my Spanish, watching a ton of American football and eating as much food as possible. Today I created a new Facebook account since it bothers everyone so much down there that I don't have one. It's all in Spanish, but feel free to add me anyway. I'll write to you in English, I promise! It's actually under my real name this time, imagine that.BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-49203268374414376532010-12-08T18:39:00.001-06:002010-12-26T21:49:25.264-06:00San Isidro de Leon Cortes!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This past week, we went back to the training facility in Tres Rios to meet our counterparts for a two-day workshop before going on our site visits for five days. It was an awesome experience and I and everyone else in the Los Santos region feels really blessed to be where we are and for whom we get to work with. Our main counterpart is the regional assessor of English and he brought with him a few other teachers and principals from our communities. My other counterpart is the principal at my high school and I can already tell that we’re going to be good friends; he’s really cool and laid back. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After the workshop, we all visited our future sites for five days. I went to San Isidro de Leon Cortes and I already really like it there a lot. It’s really beautiful and relaxing there, ‘super tranquilo.’ My new family is pretty cool, too. I thought I was only going to have one sibling because when the Peace Corps visited their house the other two weren’t there and I suppose they just forgot to ask if there were any other members of the family living there. I have a 20 year-old sister, an 18 year-old brother and a twelve year-old sister. Their names are Viviana, David and Maria Lupe, respectively, and we already have a lot of fun with each other. Something really interesting about my new family is that they have had exchange students in their house in the past, so they’re used to us and they know what to expect and how to deal with us better than other families who have no idea. The thing about having had high school exchange students, though, is that they were kind’ve crazy and they were expecting me to be like that, also. Apparently, the other people they had had before me never woke up before 9 or 10, which sounds pretty normal for a high school student but that’s ridiculous here. People generally wake up at 6 or 7 at the latest, but my family picks coffee for a living, so they wake up every day at 5. So when I woke up at 5 with them, they were astonished and kept asking me if I needed to go back to sleep. They’re also really curious to know why I don’t do drugs because the last exchange student they had moved out of their house to a bigger city so she could buy her weed. And they also insist that weed is legal in the U.S. even though I insist that it isn’t, haha. The other thing is that the exchange students slept around within the community, so everyone is already assuming that I’ll be like that, too… Nothing like high school exchange students to provide misconceptions that I have to live with for two years! Honestly though, I think they realize that I’m older and I’m coming as a volunteer so I’m not going to be doing the same types of things.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The first couple days I was in my new site, I just tried to see as much of it as I could and get a feel for where everything was. For how small it is, there’s quite a bit of stuff, and anything I can’t find in San Isidro I can go to San Pablo for and it’s only ten minutes away. We have a supermarket, a soda (a hole-in-the-wall restaurant), a movie rental store, an Internet café in my neighbors’ house, a restaurant and a soccer field. I’m pretty sure we don’t have a bank, a police station, a fire station or a gym but I can survive without those. I think I mentioned before that my family picks coffee for a living. Well, the first day I was there, my brother and I took their truck up the side of a mountain to where their ‘finca’ (farm or plantation) is and the workers brought all their ‘canastos’ (huge bags) full of coffee to put in the truck. They empty them out into this box and then they share the money based on the number of times they filled up the box. After all the coffee is in the truck, they take it up to one of the collector facilities in town. The truck has a chute on the back of it and they pour the coffee into this big container and they keep track of how many times they fill the container. It was really interesting to see a portion of the process and I’m excited to get to try out picking coffee when I go back in a week. The second day was Sunday so we went to church in the afternoon for a special Christmas service. They had a play which I’m pretty sure was their version of Scrooge and after the service they lit the Christmas tree and Santa appeared on the roof of the church and threw candy down. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Monday and Tuesday, we went to the high school in San Pablo for a workshop that the regional assessor had set up. It was a great opportunity for us to meet the other English teachers from the region that we would be working with and we were even given the chance to present what we have been learning in training. Although we don’t always feel like we’re qualified to be leaders, that’s what Manolo, the assessor, wants us to be and being at the workshop was a huge step in the right direction for us. We’ve already developed good relationships with the teachers that we’ll be working with and they have a sense of what we’ve been learning and what we’re going to be doing to help them. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I had a great time in my future community and I already really like it and can't wait to go back for good! I've&nbsp;already&nbsp;made some great relationships with my new family, my co-workers and a few people around town. I'm definitely excited about the next two years of my life :D</span></div>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-16158779868326358802010-11-27T18:27:00.001-06:002010-12-20T18:35:28.669-06:00Site Placement Day<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A couple days ago we found out where we’re all going for our two years here and I couldn’t be more excited! I’m going to a small community that is close to my training community and I’ll be close to several close friends of mine. I think I’m moving one county over or something like that because I’ll be living in a region called ‘Los Santos’ and I’ve heard a lot about it since I’ve been here. All the names of the villages in Los Santos are San </span><u><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span></u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. San Marcos, San Pablo, San Carlos, San Isidro, San Lorenzo, San Antonio, etc.; they’re all names of saints. The streets here don’t really have names, so they just refer to them as where they take you, and one of them is called ‘A Los Santos.’ I think it’s only an hour away!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The TEFL program got placed in clusters around the country and I really like all the people in my cluster. The CED program got dispersed fairly evenly around the country and I’ll be close to a couple of my friends from that program as well. My program coordinators were telling me that my site is one of the best because the teachers at the schools are really excited to work with me. They wouldn’t send any of us to a place where we weren’t wanted, but I think my community especially is excited to have me there. I think it will be similar to the community I’m in now, which is great because I love it here. I won’t be able to experience living in a different part of Costa Rica, but I will have plenty of opportunities to visit those places. At least I know that I will enjoy the climate and the scenery for two years. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The day we were told where we’re going, we had a party at a really nice club outside of San Jose. We got to play basketball, soccer and tennis and there was a pool and a hot tub, also. For lunch we had Thanksgiving food. Obviously it wasn’t as good as the food my mom makes every year, but it was a nice touch and way better than whatever I ate last year in Korea on Thanksgiving. I don’t recall where Katie and I went, but I imagine we probably wanted to get something as close to home as possible and had to settle for cheeseburgers or maybe pizza, haha.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">My good friend O Tyler will be living in Frailes, where I am now, so he is coming here today to see what it’s like, meet his new family and visit our houses. Today is also the confirmation of my little brother, Brandon, at the Catholic Church, so I’ll be headed to that in about an hour. Tyler should arrive right as the mass is ending and then we’ll eat lunch at my house before we start visiting his new family and as many other families as we can get to today. Everybody wants to meet the new gringo so I doubt we’ll make it to everyone’s house. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The past two weekends were a lot of fun. During training, we’re allowed to spend two nights outside of our communities, but they can’t be taken consecutively and they also can’t be taken until after the first month of training. For our first weekend out, the roads all over Costa Rica were really messed up after all the rain and landslides and whatnot, so the only place we could get to safely was San Jose. We found a really nice hostel for $12 and spent Saturday and Sunday shopping and sightseeing in the capital. My favorite part was eating foods I can’t get in Frailes; i.e. pizza and burgers mainly. For our second weekend, we went to a beach on the Caribbean side in the Limon province. We found a hostel there where you can sleep in hammocks for $5 and it’s practically right on the beach. The beach out in front of the hostel was a little rocky but we walked about fifteen minutes to get to a really nice part that was sandy and had good waves. I think sleeping in a hammock is pretty cool but I had trouble simply because it was so hot. It reminded me of the hotel room in Ghana without air conditioning: tossing and turning until it either cooled down or I was just so tired that it didn’t matter anymore how hot it was. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">It was really nice to be able to get out of our communities and explore the country a little bit, especially after we weren’t allowed/able to leave for the better part of a week during the national emergency. However, now that we know exactly where we’re going, it’s starting to sink in with us and with our current families that our time together is growing very, very short. Next week, we all visit our future sites for four or five days and by the <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">18<sup>th</sup> of December we’re gone. </span></span>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-36178279479452310052010-11-17T08:54:00.000-06:002010-11-17T08:54:56.929-06:00Training so far...<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">11/7/10</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve been in Costa Rica for over a month so remembering everything that’s happened in the last 5ish weeks is going to be impossible, but this is seriously the first chance I’ve gotten to write and I’ll try my best. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I remember my parents driving me to D.C. and staying the night with me before my orientation at the Holiday Inn Georgetown. I was excited to be going on another adventure but I was also nervous about meeting so many new people. I knew that I would be spending a lot of time with them over the next 3 months and I was worried that I wouldn’t like them or vice versa. I got to spend some time with Andy as he lives really close to that area of D.C. It was like the night before my trip to Korea all over again! The following morning, before my family left, I switched rooms and met my roommate for the night, Taylor. He’s a really cool guy from Tennessee so I was definitely relieved to have already met someone I got along with well. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The orientation day we had is a huge blur for me at this point. I remember meeting a lot of people and doing a lot of activities, filling out a lot of paperwork and just trying to absorb as much information as I could. I remember the very, very first thing we did as a group was introduce ourselves and say one fun fact we had learned about Costa Rica during our research. I felt like everyone was really nervous so I decided to go first and break the ice by telling everyone that prostitution is legal in Costa Rica (which may or may not be true; it’s still unclear)! The guys in my group thought it was hilarious but the girls just thought I was weird haha. Beyond that, I don’t remember a whole lot. We did some skits, drew some posters about or fears/concerns and our aspirations, learned some of the Peace Corps’ policies, etc. Afterwards, we got some “walk-around” money for dinner and whatever else we wanted to do in Georgetown. It’s an expensive part of town so we got like $75 or something crazy. We also got reimbursed for our travels to D.C. so I had a lot more money to take with me to Costa Rica than I was expecting. I went to a Greek restaurant with a dozen or so other people and they were all cool too, so I wasn’t really worried at all about the trip any more after that; although, I started to feel old, haha. I’m actually under the average age for the group, but that’s only because there are a couple people over fifty that bump it up. I’m definitely over the median.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The makeup of our group is interesting. Tico 21 (Costa Ricans refer to themselves as ticosand we’re the 21<sup>st</sup> group) is comprised of two different programs: TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and CED (Community Economic Development, I think!). TEFL is almost all girls and CED is almost all guys, but combined it’s fairly even. I think they told us at our orientation that we come from almost half of the states in America. Surprisingly, Virginia is the third most represented state, I’m pretty sure, behind California and Texas. There’s me, a girl from Harrisonburg, a guy that went to JMU from Richmond and a girl from central Virginia. There are 45 of us in all, so four from Virginia isn’t bad at all. North Carolina has a few also and, actually, one of the girls from there lived and worked in Luray in the same restaurant that Katie used to work at. Small world. There are quite a bit of people in our group that already speak Spanish fluently or close to it. In fact, one of the girls in our group speaks Spanish better than English! A lot of them grew up in Spanish-speaking homes and others lived abroad in Spanish-speaking countries. One of the things we talk about all the time is how there’s really no substitute for living somewhere and being completely immersed if you’re really trying to learn a language. A lot of us took a lot of Spanish in school and a few people were Spanish majors in college, but the people who actually lived abroad are the ones that can speak the most now. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After orientation, we flew into Costa Rica and were immediately bussed up to a retreat outside of the capital, San Jose. We were in an area called Tres Rios, three rivers, and my host family later explained that rich and famous people live there. We spent the next four days getting to know each other, learning more about our training and eventual service, trying new foods and drinks and just relaxing. It never dawned on me until just now, because four days out of five weeks seems negligible, but because of the way our training is set up, a lot of the friendships I’ve made since being here are almost exclusively from those four days. I’m jumping ahead of myself a bit now, but we were put into training communities based upon our program and our Spanish level. I’m in the TEFL intermediate-low group with four (now five; we just got a new girl from Peace Corps/Tonga) other people and the only time I see the others is when we have training all together two days a week. And for the most part, our training is based upon our program, so what I’m saying is that I basically never get to see the guys from the CED program and the friendships that I have with those guys were formed over an extremely short and busy period of four days. Wow! Really crazy to think about. The retreat was further proof that this is where I’m supposed to be and these are the people I’m supposed to be with and this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I remember in my initial interview with the leaders of my program, I told them that I had never felt such a sense of purpose in my life. I know there will be hard times to come and that feeling will be tested, but I really feel like I can make a difference here and I will be made different in the process, also. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The four days were really fun. I remember playing sports in our free time during the day and just hanging out or using the Internet to check sports scores at night. The food was really good, but it’s still really good at my host family’s house, too. For breakfast, we either eat gallo pinto (rice and beans with cilantro, awesome) with an egg and quesoblanco (white cheese that squeaks when you chew it; if you can get past the texture, I think it tastes really good) or we eat sandwiches. I prefer the more typical gallo pinto breakfast, but the sandwiches are pretty decent, too. Lunch and dinner are kind’ve hard to distinguish between. I haven’t really noticed a difference. We usually eat rice and beans, chicken, andplatanos (fried bananas; I was positive I would hate them and I kind’ve did at first because I don’t like sweet stuff usually, but they’ve grown on me and I can’t imagine eating rice and beans without them, almost like having a Korean meal without kimchi!). We also eat soups with chicken or meat and a lot of vegetables. They have potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower here, but the other vegetables are different from what we have. It’s funny though, because most of the ones we don’t have are really similar to potatoes in my opinion so it’s almost like they just have a lot more variety of potato, but I know they’re not really. Basically, the food here is great and I’m pretty sure I’m gaining back the weight I lost in Korea haha. The only food I didn’t like so far were the lunches my host mom packed for me to go to my training site before I told her that I didn’t mind cold beans and rice!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is going to take forever if I describe everything that happened in detail, so I’ll just expand on the most important things that happened during our retreat. We had our LPI (language proficiency interview) test to determine which level we were and what community we would be going to. I did not do well at all during my interview but somehow I got intermediate-low. Not that I doubted the teachers in the first place, but having been in my group for a month I know they put all of us in the right place because all of our levels are similar. It’s nice not having anyone really below or above you, so we’re all learning together at the same pace and we all have the same struggles. We need to get to intermediate-intermediate to be sworn in as Volunteers, although they did say that for the TEFL program they would also accept intermediate-low. We’re going to re-take the test later this week, as it’s the midpoint in our training and I’ll be able to see how much I’ve learned and what level I’ve already attained. I would like to be IM at the midpoint and intermediate-high by the end. Another thing that happened during the retreat was a couple guys and I watched a Costa Rican soccer game with the security guard. His favorite team, Saprissa, was playing and he convinced us all to become Saprissistas (fans of Saprissa). Little did I know that Saprissa is far and away the favorite team for most ticos and their rival, La Liga, has the second biggest fan base. Now I’m always getting into arguments with the Ligistas! The next to last day of the retreat, we were sent on a mission to buy and use phone cards and then find our way to an important location in Cartago using our Spanish and ask questions about the place. Our group got the museum in Cartago and we met an artist who was working on a huge mural inside the museum. She explained that she is the first woman in Costa Rica to be allowed to paint a mural (I think, there was no translator so I just picked up bits and pieces of what she said) and that the mural is a history of Costa Rica from the time of its discovery until now. It was nice to get out of the retreat center for a few hours and have our first taste of real Costa Rican culture. At the end of the retreat, we had a barbecue with music and dancing and during the meal there was a minor earthquake! I didn’t even realize what it was at first haha. Luckily, there haven’t been any quakes since then. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Towards the end of the retreat, we were given pamphlets telling us which community we were going to and who our family was. Right now, I’m in the community of Frailes about 25 miles south of San Jose. After another month or so, I’ll be done with training and will be leaving for another community, most likely much farther away from the center of the country. I really like it here; I kind’ve wish I could stay, but I would also enjoy seeing other parts of the country, too. Frailes is a town of about 5,000 people and although it feels small, it is the second biggest of all the training communities. There isn’t much here, but we do have some resources that aren’t available in other places. We have two Internet cafes, a police station, two grocery stores, three sodas (hole-in-the-wall restaurants), a library, two pool halls and much more! It doesn’t sound like much, but like I said, other places don’t have hardly anything. A couple of the other communities that I’ve seen are just houses and farms on the side of the road with a pulperia (general store) and an elementary school. A lot of kids from all around have to come to Frailes for high school. The other thing our pamphlet told us is the address of your host family’s house, but Costa Rica doesn’t really do addresses. Basically, they take a point of reference that anyone who knows the area would know well, like the Catholic Church, and then they tell you how many meters and in what direction to walk. My address was 300 meters southwest of the Catholic Church. Thankfully, my family was there waiting for me at the bus stop to take me home or else I probably would have never found their house!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Speaking of meeting my host family, it was really awkward at first because my Spanish was so bad and I was so nervous that I could barely say, “Hola.” I remember greeting my new mom with the kiss on the cheek thing they do here that I was still not completely comfortable with and then putting my luggage into a taxi. I think I did an OK job packing for this trip and I definitely didn’t bring as much stuff as I could have, but I still got the sense that the amount I had brought with me was more than what they were expecting. The family I’m staying with isn’t poor by any stretch, but they just have less stuff. And it makes you think… do I really need twenty T-shirts or could I do laundry more often and get by with five or ten? It’s an interesting topic right now because we don’t have water due to the landslides we’ve been having. But I’ll get to that later. My dad, Carlos, is really chill. He works at one of the sodas, so I can go anytime I want and get free food. I try not to take advantage of it too often though because I feel like I stick out enough as it is and I don’t want to be treated differently just because I’m a gringo. But I think it’s culturally acceptable in Costa Rica for family to hook each other up with stuff from where they work. My mom, Mayela, stays at home most of the day except for random trips to the store or to visit friends and family. She’s an awesome cook and she is from here originally and she had something like 15 brothers and sisters so there’s always more family to meet. She told me that she has over a hundred cousins, but they count any relative as a cousin here practically. I have three brothers: Ignacio, 29, Lizandro, 20, and Brandon, 15. Ignacio works construction and he has two kids of his own that live with their mother; Nayeli, 7, and Scarleth, 5. Lizandro owns one of the pool halls in town. It’s free to go in and play pool but he has arcade games and he sells snacks. Brandon is still in high school so I see him the most out of anyone in my family. At the beginning, my Spanish wasn’t very good and I didn’t have a whole lot of time before or after training each day to hang out with my family, so I didn’t have a chance to really bond with them. I felt comfortable and they did their best to include me, but we just didn’t have the time with each other necessary to really form that relationship. But now I really feel close with them and we have inside jokes and games we play and whatnot. The difference is that my Spanish is a little better, but the main thing is that I’ve had a ton of free time with them the past few days because we’re in “Standfast” right now because of the national emergency (Standfast means we’re not allowed to leave our community but we can continue our normal routine). Costa Rica is mostly mountains, steep mountains, and when it rains a whole lot and the earth is completely saturated the ground gets really heavy and it slides. They call them derrumbes in Spanish. Some derrumbes don’t really affect anyone because they happen on slopes so steep that nobody lives there and the land isn’t cultivated so it just drops down to the river in the valley and it’s no big deal. But this time a huge derrumbe landed right on the road to San Jose four days ago and they still haven’t completely cleaned it up, so we haven’t had any classes since our Spanish class on Wednesday. And we had just come back from our visit with current Peace Corps volunteers, so we haven’t had some of our classes in a week and a half. Thankfully, everyone in our group is OK, but a few dozen Costa Ricans died in various parts of the country. The worst that happened in Frailes was that our power got knocked out for a day and we didn’t have water for four days or so (we <u>just</u> got water as I was writing this!). And some of our roads got washed away. The roads in Costa Rica are really bad and heavy rains and landslides keep messing them up. One of my companeros (mates, it’s funny how you get used to saying something in another language and you can’t think of the English version right off; that hasn’t happened to me too often yet, but we had a session with current volunteers telling us about the different clubs and stuff within Peace Corps/Costa Rica and they often couldn’t think of what they were trying to say in English)… One of my companeros here in Frailes<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>had two derrumbes near his house, one on either side, so he was sandwiched in for a few hours before they cleared away the dirt! We actually had a couple small landslides at my house that fell into our driveway. It wasn’t dangerous at all, just more of a pain that we had to cut down the trees that fell across our drive and get the dirt out of the way.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So with all the free time I’ve had in the house for almost a week, I’ve been watching movies, playing card games and just talking with them. Sometimes the movies are only in Spanish, but usually they can get English subtitles for me. They enjoy making fun of horror movies like I do so it’s a lot of fun. Naipe is their favorite card game; someone told me that it’s similar to rummy. You start with seven cards and the objective is to get sets of three of a kind or three cards of the same suit in consecutive order. Once a set is played, other players can add to the set and whoever runs out of cards first wins. The only difference between naipe and rummy is the way you draw and discard. I lost terribly the first time I played but once I picked it up I rattled off nine wins in ten games and my brothers claimed I was cheating haha! Quetramposo!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Training with the Peace Corps consists of Spanish classes Monday, Wednesday and Friday, program-related training on Tuesdays and Peace Corps-related training on Thursdays. The Spanish classes are in your communities with a teacher that takes the bus out to your site. Frailes is the farthest one away from San Jose so our class starts the latest! However, we have to get up the earliest to get to our other classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so it’s a tradeoff. We go from 9:30 to 4. We started with general vocabulary and a quick review of how to conjugate regular verbs in the present tense and we’ve been steadily working our way towards harder material. For me, having taken so many Spanish classes before, grammar isn’t the issue; I just don’t know that many words. We finished the past tense last week and we just started the future. Apparently, Spanish is spoken a little differently in each individual country, so some of the words that I learned before aren’t used here. But it’s nice when, for example, the future tense in Costa Rica is much simpler than what I had learned in my classes and since forgotten and was dreading trying to learn again. Almost every class, we’re sent out into the community with a question to ask or a topic to talk about with a random person. It was intimidating to do these tasks at first, but I’m really glad that we did them, not necessarily that it really enhanced my language skill, but it showed us that the people here are very warm and receiving of us and don’t mind talking to strangers. Sure, it’s a little awkward at first, and they have to get over their initial surprise that we came right up to them and started talking with them, but after that they would talk to us all day if we let them. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The entire Tico 21 group travels to Tarbaca for the classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Coming from San Jose, one of the major roads going south takes you to Tarbaca and then splits. If you stay right you go up to where the CED communities are and if you go left you’ll pass all the TEFL training communities. So Tarbaca is a great place for us all to meet because it’s right in the middle of all of our towns. Our classes start at 8 a.m. and the bus ride from Frailes takes about an hour, so we have to get up around 5:30 in order to be ready for our 6:30 bus. Our classes don’t finish until 5 and sometimes the bus from San Jose is full and we have to wait until the later one comes at 6:30 p.m. We don’t get home those nights until almost 8 and by that time the only thing we can do is have dinner and get ready for bed (I forgot to mention that people generally sleep from 9-5 here; the economy is still largely agricultural so this schedule takes full advantage of the sunlight). The technical training we have on Tuesdays is for learning how to be an English teacher in Costa Rica. Some of what we learn is general stuff that all teachers need to know, but a lot of it is specific to CR. We learn about how ticos communicate with each other indirectly and how we might step on teacher’s toes if we’re very direct with them. I’m still trying to figure this stuff out, but one example of indirect communication that I’ve encountered so far was when I went on my visit the family asked me what I liked to eat for breakfast back home in the States. I don’t normally eat breakfast back home but I told them corn flakes anyway and they had worried expressions on their faces, which really confused me because I didn’t think what I liked to eat back home should worry them. But the volunteer I was visiting interjected and told them that it didn’t matter what they served me for breakfast. Then he explained to me that they were indirectly asking me what I wanted to have for breakfast the next morning. It’s one of those things that seems really strange and inefficient to outsiders, but it’s just another way of doing things and people from the culture that understand the indirect communication do just fine with it. Another interesting thing about ticos is that they love talking about their families because who you are is more defined by who you’re related to than by what you do with your life or what you’ve accomplished. So if you’re meeting a teacher for the first time and you exchange pleasantries and then get right down to business, they’re not going to be comfortable with you and you’re not going to get anywhere with them. It’s better to just relax and talk with them about their family and community and stuff like that the first time and they’ll be ready to talk about work later. That’s another cultural difference that will be hard to adapt to for me. Not that Americans are unfriendly at work or anything, but work is for work in our culture. And tico time is another difference that I’m going to struggle with. You always hear about how in Latin cultures, time isn’t that big of a deal and people show up late for things, but it doesn’t really hit home until you live here and see just how widespread it really is. I always wondered how it worked exactly because some things almost have to be punctual; and a few things are, like the buses, but that’s about it. We went to the high school one day to observe the first class of the day before we had to go to our Spanish class and the teacher showed up fifteen minutes late and then left again to make copies. The class that was supposed to start at 7:30 didn’t really start until 8. Most of the students were there on time, but a couple trickled in well after 8 and it wasn’t a big deal. It was a good class, but the time thing was really surprising to me. I thought that tico time would be limited to social functions but it seems to spill over into just about anything. I don’t think stores have set opening and closing times either. Culture isn’t the only thing we learn about in our TEFL classes. We’re learning a lot of basics for teaching like lesson planning, classroom management and how to provide a good learning environment for the kids. I’m really glad that I have experience with teaching going into this because it helps me understand what I’m learning because I can look back on some of the situations that arose in Korea. I’m beginning to realize that learning and experience go hand in hand and it makes sense to work for a few years before going to grad school because what you’re learning is less theoretical and more practical when you have an experience to apply it to. Not that there’s anything wrong with going straight to grad school, but I think older people might get more out of it. If I had never taught a class before in my life I wouldn’t really understand what I’m learning now in training. Of course, after a few months of teaching I would remember what I learned and start applying it to my classes, but right now I can think back to problem students in Korea or times when the class got out of control. I have situations in mind that what I’m learning applies to directly. The classes are great and the training I’m receiving now is amazing and infinitely better than the training we had (or didn’t have) in Korea, but nothing compares to experience. It sucked not having hardly any training and almost never having a co-teacher and teaching as many classes a day as we had to, but Katie and I learned how to be teachers that year. We learned by doing.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Peace Corps classes on Thursdays are about culture in general, medical stuff, safety and security and rules and regulations of the Peace Corps. I feel like Thursdays are a little more interesting than Tuesdays because the classes are more varied than just learning how to teach for eight hours. Our culture teacher explains how certain words are use differently in Costa Rica than in any other place and how different groups of people greet each other. Women greet everyone with a kiss on the cheek but two men wouldn’t do that, for instance. The younger guys whistle at each other as they pass while the older men kind’ve grunt. Most of what we learn we could probably pick up eventually on our own, but it’s nice knowing in advance and not making as many mistakes in the process. There are a lot of informal greetings that are not OK to use in formal settings, for example. The medical classes seem like they’re more about awareness of risks than prevention. It would be impossible and extremely expensive to provide us with medicines and vaccines for every possible sickness, but they do a great job telling us what’s out there in CR and how to avoid getting it. Malaria and other mosquito-borne illnesses are a risk, but only in certain areas of the country; actually the vast majority of the cases are found in a single county that I’ll be sure not to visit! The safety and security classes focus on crime and natural disasters and how to minimize the risks. Not falling asleep on buses, keeping your bag in your lap with your arms around it, carrying only as much money as you need, carrying your wallet in your front left pocket, not walking at night, walking quickly and not drinking in public are all good ways to minimize the risk of being the victim of a crime. Obviously, we have no control over natural disasters, but what we can do is know the Emergency Action Plan really well so we’ll know what to do when one happens. We had just gone over the EAP the week prior to the national emergency, so we all knew what was expected of us at each stage of the plan. They cancelled classes on Thursday and put us in the first stage which is just to remain vigilant, stay in touch with other people and be ready for the next stage. Thursday night, they cancelled classes for Friday and Monday and put us in standfast for the duration of the weekend. Standfast means we have to pack a bag in case we consolidate and we’re not allowed to leave our communities but we can continue to go about our normal schedule unless we hear otherwise. Thankfully we never had to consolidate, but if we had, everyone from Frailes would have met at the Catholic Church and lived there until the emergency was over or until they elevated to the highest stage and evacuated us from the country. Consolidation is different once training is over, because during training each community has its own consolidation point, but during service the country is split up into six regions and each region has a consolidation point that every volunteer from that region has to get to. Our standfast period ended this morning, which means we’re allowed to leave Frailes but all the roads are messed up and they’re still not completely clear so we can’t really go anywhere anyway. But like I said earlier, it’s been a blessing in disguise because I’ve gotten a lot closer with my family and probably learned more Spanish, too!</span></span></div>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-79943920781987882592010-09-29T10:36:00.000-06:002010-09-29T10:36:14.602-06:00Braves UpdateI lied. I had to post again about the Braves before I left! Their playoff chances are just too encouraging for me to pass it up. :)&nbsp; As I mentioned in my last post, the Giants and the Padres have to play each other at the end of the season, which makes things interesting because one of those teams will win the NL West while the other contends with the Braves for the wild card. It would get too complicated for the baseball websites to factor in teams' schedules when determining the magic and/or elimination numbers, but not so for me! Assuming both the Giants and the Padres win their two remaining games before their series against each other, the best possible records for the two teams (remember, both teams have to have better records than the Braves for the Braves to be eliminated) would be 92-70 and 91-71 <u>if</u> the Padres sweep or they take two out of three from the Giants. Obviously, if the Giants sweep or take two out of three, then their record would be much better, 94-68 I think, but the Padres' would only be 89-73. Anyway, worst case scenario is that the Braves have to beat a 91-71 record. Best case scenario is the Padres just lose all their games and the Braves win the wild card without having to strain their pitching staff to win games at the end. MLB.com and ESPN.com have the magic number for the Braves' wild card set at 4, meaning they have to win four more games or the Padres have to lose four games or some combination of the Braves' wins and the Padres' losses equalling four. And that number is correct if you're only concerned about the Braves and the Padres, but it's possible for the Padres to overtake the Giants and push them into the wild card race. Factoring in the schedule, the real number is three. I'm not worried at all about the Braves being able to take care of business and get a win or two or three in their final four games and clinch. Their final series is against the Phillies, which would normally scare me, but they will have locked up the best record in the NL and they'll have nothing to play for. Their best pitchers will be resting for the playoff push.<br /><br />Looking ahead to the playoffs, I'm not sure how much faith I have in the Braves to go very far. I'm pretty sure they don't allow teams from the same division to play in the first round even though they may have the wild card winner and the team with the best record, so we won't have to play the Phillies right out of the box. I could see us beating either the Reds or the Giants/Padres, but after that I'm betting on the Phillies. They're just too good. They probably spent about as much money as the Yankees did, it's ridiculous. I really don't care about the AL; I think the DH is stupid and takes away from the strategy of the game and I think they just hit a bunch of home runs and don't play small ball. Not to mention the fact that there are two less teams in the AL, what's up with that? This is a completely uneducated guess because I don't follow that league but I'm picking an AL East team to go to the World Series. Either one. I just can't see the Twins sans Morneau getting there or the Rangers. I think their records are better than they should be because both of their divisions are trash. It's incredible to have two .600 win % teams in the same division like the Yankees and Rays. Especially when you consider that the Red Sox and the Blue Jays aren't that bad either. The Sox probably would have won the wild card or even some divisions in the NL. Bottom line: NLCS: Braves vs. Phillies; ALCS: Yankees vs. Rays. An all-east final is in the cards this year. Phillies will win in 6. You heard it here first.BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-79949879970479122692010-09-26T19:08:00.000-06:002010-09-26T19:08:33.129-06:00Wake me up when September ends...That's what the Atlanta Braves are sayin' right now. They entered September leading the National League East by three games over the Phillies, who were 1.5 games ahead of the Giants for the wild card. So essentially, the Braves were leading the race for a playoff spot by 4.5 games going into the final month of the season. Now they're 6 games behind the Phillies for the NL East and a half game behind the Padres for the wild card. Yes, you read that correctly. The Phillies gained nine games on the Braves in less than a month, thanks to their 18-2 start and the Braves inexplicably losing game after game to inferior opponents (a la the Nationals). The only good news is that the Giants are only a half game ahead of the Padres for the NL West and those two teams play a 3-game series at the end of the season, so somebody has to lose those games which will make it possible for the Braves to come back and win the wild card. Even though they're behind in the standings, the Braves still technically control their own destiny. Now if they could just stop sucking...<br /><br />In other sports news, JMU beat Liberty in football this weekend by a score of 10-3. It was the closest anticlimactic game I think I've ever seen. The entire game was an exercise in futility for both teams. Liberty's only score came in the second quarter and that drive was kept alive by a roughing the kicker penalty. The game was so bad that I don't even know how to characterize it. It wasn't that sloppy... one turnover and a handful of penalties for each team. It wasn't a bad weather game... the conditions were perfect for a good game of football. It wasn't a game shortened by long sustained drives... aside from Liberty's ten-minute scoring drive, both teams held the ball for a couple minutes before punting it away (twelve punts in all, six for each). The only thing I can think of is that it was a defensive struggle, but it really didn't seem like the defenses were that good. The offenses were just that bad. They combined to go 7 for 28 on 3rd downs. I'm glad that we won and it's nice to know that we can win a game like that, but it was painful and boring to watch.<br /><br />It was really great to get to see my JMU friends before I leave a week from today. We were reliving our glory days by ordering pizza (mmm Chanello's) at 2 AM and then staying up playing video games until 4 or 5. I'm still the king of NBA Jam for the SNES but Rob has definitely surpassed me in Halo. I guess the days of me only allowing myself one bullet to kill him with couldn't last forever. Of course it was awesome to go to one last JMU home game and tailgate with some good friends and good food. We got to sit in the student section even though we're not students anymore and listen to the band play and watch the streamers being thrown whenever we scored (or whenever something good happened since we barely scored; penalties in our favor got streamers it was so bad). Also, there was a four-minute fireworks display after the game which I caught on video and will be showing to Costa Ricans along with some pictures and other videos I took at the game. They need to know about American football and how awesome JMU is at it! But the fireworks were a little too much if you ask me. There were about thirty seconds of them for each point we scored. If they did that for Ohio State, Wisconsin or Michigan, they'd have a full July 4th display on their hands after those blowouts. Just sayin'.<br /><br />That was definitely my last big thing before leaving, so now I have to face the music and start the packing process. I've said all my goodbyes besides my family and it's time to go... I know this is something I'm meant to do and I still want to do it, but I'm sad right now to be honest. It's not like it happens very often that I get to see all my friends together like that, maybe once a year, but it's still hard knowing that it won't be possible again for 2 to 3 years. And by then we might not have the luxury of all of us still living in VA. While I'm gone, I'm sure to miss out on some reunions. I already know I'll be missing Rob and Shelley's wedding. There may be others that haven't been set yet that I'll miss or one of my friends could have a baby or something. And those are the good things. God forbid something bad happens while I'm away. But that's just part of the deal when you decide to go overseas. Luckily, I didn't miss out on too much the last couple times I left. The only thing I missed out on when I went to Ghana was Rihanna's umbrella song and I didn't feel like I missed out on too much there. Same with Korea: Twitter, Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson's death, Twilight and the whole vampire craze were the only things I missed and I didn't care about any of it. Between Korea and Costa Rica, I'm strategically missing most of Obama's first term, which is nice. I think he'll probably get re-elected, so maybe I'll go on some more trips after this one haha! Just kidding, he's not that bad. I'm gonna end this post before things get too political around here.<br /><br />I may not post again before I leave so just to let everyone know my traveling schedule... I'm leaving Roanoke next Sunday for D.C. where my orientation begins on Monday the 4th. Early Tuesday morning, we leave the hotel to go to the airport and connect in Miami before arriving in San Jose. After that I know next to nothing except that I will be living with a host family and training for the next two and a half months. They won't tell me where my site is until about a week before training ends, but I've heard that the TEFL program will be working primarily in urban settings. That's literally all I know up to this point. But maybe that's how it should be. It definitely makes it hard to develop expectations that will probably not be lived up to anyway. Buenas noches!BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-69210592458937115812010-09-23T22:23:00.000-06:002010-09-23T22:23:47.726-06:00Getting Ready to GoSometimes it feels like I just got back from Korea and other times it feels like I never left at all. Like I never spent five years in college or visited Ghana or South Korea. I think it has something to do with the fact that I've lived in the same home my entire life and I will probably feel similarly once I return from Costa Rica in 27 months. Of course, the house itself has gone through many changes during my lifetime and I've long since realized that it's not the house of my childhood any longer, but still, I've lived here my whole life, in the same room even and it seems like a blur sometimes. Sometimes. If you read my aspiration statement, you will remember the awkward introduction before I got down to answering the questions (which the Peace Corps definitely did not ask for by the way, haha) in which I talked about my mixed emotions. I feel the same way now as I did when I wrote those words. Leaving the country and coming back and leaving again... it's always so bittersweet. You're excited about experiencing new things, meeting new people, learning a new language, trying new foods, maybe you're even excited about the challenging times ahead. But leaving your friends and family is something that is never easy. I try to play it cool and shrug it off like it's no big deal, but it really sucks sometimes. For instance, I left for Korea in February 2009 and one of my best friends left for China literally two weeks before I returned. Now, seven months later, I'll be going to Costa Rica for 27 months. Barring a vacation down to Costa Rica to see me or a trip home during my service, which is entirely probable, don't get me wrong, I will have gone almost four years without seeing him... 4 years, that's insane. That's the amount of time it takes to get a college degree and I won't have seen him for that long. And that's just one friend. I may have had the opportunity to visit most of my other friends and family in between this trip and the last, but just because it breaks the chain of consecutive months without seeing them, that doesn't really make up for the fact that I will have been away for three years of my life. Don't worry, I'm still going! I just wanted to let anyone and everyone who happens to read this thing know that I do miss you guys and your support while I'm gone is crucial (hint: comments on here or emails).<br /><br />Speaking of email, I got a laptop today! I really wasn't planning on bringing one, especially since I don't have one and have never had one before, but my mentor (the Peace Corps sets you up with the email address for a volunteer who is currently serving in your host country = invaluable resource) told me that he and every single volunteer he knows either brought one or bought one and that it's basically necessary for you to do your job adequately. So... I got one! After much thinking and researching, I realized that I don't need to get the best one out there. I'm a desktop guy; I don't care about the portability of laptops. What I do care about is getting the most powerful machine for the cheapest price so I can own in the video games I play. But this was a completely different circumstance than any other time I had gone computer shopping. I realized that all I needed was a computer that had Microsoft Office (which isn't cheap... $100!) and could access the Internet. I probably could have saved a lot of money by going the netbook route, but I think I would get really frustrated with a computer that small. I had narrowed it down to four computers: 2 Toshibas, a Gateway, and an HP. One of the Toshibas was sold out and I heard bad things and read bad reviews about the other so it came down to the Gateway and the HP. The Gateway had superior reviews, both customer and expert, a superior processor and more hard drive space. So I went with that one for $550. Of course, that was before Microsoft Office, the anti-virus software and whatever else they charge you for. I also have yet to buy a case and am already over $700. Laim &lt;-- you know who you are.<br /><br />I also got a camera today! This decision was made much easier after I found out that the camera we had used in Korea was actually only a 5x optical zoom and not a 10x as I had been thinking. I knew that I wanted more zoom and it's kind of hard to find a pocket-sized digital camera that offers more than 10x and doesn't suck in some other category. I had been considering more medium-sized cameras, you know the kind that doesn't fit in your pocket but isn't huge either, because the stats were just so appealing. 30x optical zoom and all the other bells and whistles were almost enough to make me go against my better judgment on the size issue. Lugging around a camera case around my neck and the possibility of it getting lost or stolen were too much in the end. So I ended up with the Sony HX5V. Hopefully, I will be taking lots of pictures and videos and posting them to this blog before too long! Just like the laptop, this purchase skyrocketed in price after adding all the little things you truly need that don't come with it: memory cards, a case, an extra battery and a battery charging station. <br /><br />Among the lesser purchases I've made or hope to make before I leave are Nike Dri Fit shirts, a nice rain jacket and rain pants (it rains about 3x more there than in Roanoke), a new pair of shoes and a water filter so I can drink the local water and not have to buy bottled water all the time. The Dri Fit shirts were recommended to me by my mentor, so I definitely had to give them consideration. They're meant for running, but sitting around in Costa Rica is probably as hot or hotter than running in the States. They're sweet because they're cooler than normal shirts, they dry faster and they don't stretch. All of which are extremely helpful in the tropics because it's hot, there are no dryers and drying racks stretch clothes really bad as I experienced once before in Korea. We'll see how they hold up.<br /><br />I had been going back and forth on whether or not to write about this, but the overwhelming support of my guy friends made the decision for me. I noticed a change in myself last week. A thought had occurred to me that had never occurred to me before. While I was at the gym, I saw a girl that I thought was really attractive. So attractive that I would be scared to talk to her because I'm a wuss. Now maybe it was simply because I'm leaving the country for 27 months and I've got nothing to lose but I actually thought about asking her out on a date. If you don't know me, this is something I have never done before and it had literally never even crossed my mind - to ask out a girl that I had never met before or been introduced to; a complete stranger, knowing nothing about her except that she goes to the Y. We will call her YMCA girl as I still do not know her name. My other theory about why it crossed my mind is that living in a foreign country, learning the language, interacting with people in broken English or broken Spanish or broken Korean, has somehow changed me in such a way that I'm at least partially immune to the fear of people. Just the other day I had a pleasant conversation with a random guy in Wendy's. That would have <u>never</u> happened before. But that's not as interesting as YMCA girl - sorry Wendy's guy. I wanted to get the opinions and advice of my friends as I had never done anything like this before and was at a loss for how to go about it exactly. Do I wait for the perfect opportunity or do I make one for myself? Do I bump into her or meet her at the water fountain or just walk straight up to her and ask her? Surely one of my friends would have had experience with this sort of thing and could tell me what to do and what to say. Maybe if I was friends with a bunch of meatheads I could have gotten some terrible pickup lines or something, but not one of them had ever gone up to a random girl and asked her out. I could have easily been discouraged by this, and the old me definitely would have been, but now I feel like it's my duty to ask this girl out. I honestly don't even care what she says in response. Actually, if she says yes I may be more scared about the actual date than I was about asking her in the first place lol. The interesting thing is that although none of my friends had ever done it before, they were all urging me to do it. Some said I <u>had</u> to do it. "Dude, you have to do it," they said. "You've got to." We may never know what YMCA girl's name truly is or what she would have said if I had gotten the chance to ask her (I've only seen her like three times in two months so chances are slim I'll get another chance), but one thing is for sure: overseas travel has changed me, for the better I hope!BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-6954660368325394542010-09-14T13:13:00.000-06:002010-09-14T13:13:34.134-06:00JMU 21, Va Tech 16I know this blog is supposed to be about my trip to Costa Rica, but c'mon. How could I not take this opportunity to rub it in to all the Tech fans in Roanoke who just never seem to shut up about Tech football? Every year they come into the new season with an inflated ranking and national title aspirations and every year they lose a game or two they "should" have won. And the worst part about it is that the ACC is so weak that they usually make it to a BCS game anyway! This year could very well be no different. It's true, Tech is 0-2 for the first time since 1995 but they have yet to play a single conference game. They could easily run through their ACC schedule and represent the Coastal division in Charlotte. And let's not forget that in 1995 Tech ended up going to the Sugar Bowl and beating Texas. So I'm not here to say that Tech's season is over or that they're a terrible team, but I sure am glad they lost to my JMU Dukes - and the earlier in the season the better. As if hearing about it all off season isn't enough, Tech fans take it to a whole 'nother level when they're undefeated after a few weeks.<br /><br />I hope this win will shed some light on how great the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) is and how terrible the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is. Once again, I'm not saying that the CAA is better than the ACC, but the CAA is by far the best conference in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) and the ACC is arguably the worst major conference in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). I don't follow the mid-major conferences but fans of the Boise State's and TCU's of the world could probably make a strong argument for the WAC or the MWC being as good as the ACC. Let's take a look at the Top 25 of each subdivision, shall we? The ACC started the season with five ranked teams. From the Roanoke Times' Sports section on Monday: "After two weeks, those five members have combined for zero wins over Division 1-A teams; four losses to Top 25 teams; one loss to a 1-AA team; and one loss to a team that had been beaten by a 1-AA foe." All that losing leaves the ACC with just a single team in the Top 25. It's really weird looking at Miami's schedule on ESPN.com and not seeing any rankings beside their ACC opponents for the rest of the season. <br /><br />The CAA has fared much better in the FCS polls with seven of its ten members being ranked. All seven teams are actually within the top 16 of the poll this week. The CAA can also boast six of the top 12 and two of the top 3. You may be surprised to learn that JMU is not the #1 team in the FCS; rather, its defending champions Villanova. Speaking of champions, the CAA has produced four different national champions out of the last seven years and the CAA has been represented in the championship game six of the last seven years. Now I know what you're thinking. What does the success of the CAA in the inferior FCS have to do with being able to play with FBS teams? My point is that the CAA is the SEC of the FCS and all those great schools playing each other every year makes them better and they're not scared to play anybody. Top to bottom, I think any sane sports fan would have to agree that the ACC is better than the CAA, but over the last two seasons the series is tied 3-3 with one of the ACC's wins coming in OT against JMU... makes you wonder!<br /><br />One last jab at Tech before I post: JMU 11, Va Tech 0&nbsp; &lt;--- the number of AP poll points this weekBCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202545059195551362.post-82116318299373993092010-09-13T16:41:00.001-06:002010-09-13T16:41:00.321-06:00Aspiration StatementWelcome to my new blog for my upcoming service in Costa Rica with the Peace Corps! I hope I am able to update this thing on a regular basis, but access to the Internet is not guaranteed once we are placed&nbsp; in our assignments so updates may be infrequent or non-existent after the first of the year. I apologize in advance.<br /><br />For those of you who don't know, I went to South Korea for a year to teach English and that trip made me realize how much I enjoy living abroad and experiencing new people, places and cultures. My ex-girlfriend and I kept up a blog while we were there: <a href="http://www.katieandorbrian.blogspot.com/">www.katieandorbrian.blogspot.com</a>. If you don't have time to read the entries there is a link on the right side of the screen to our picture albums! Enjoy!<br /><br />Once a Peace Corps applicant has been selected for service, an updated resume and an aspiration statement must be e-mailed to the Peace Corps staff in your host country. The aspiration statement is meant to give the staff with whom you will be training shortly a better idea of who you are and why you decided to join the Peace Corps. It also gives the individual writing it a chance to really think through the thoughts, feelings, desires and goals that led up to this point and it serves as a reminder once you begin your service as to what in the world you were thinking before you began! It is split up into five topics:<br /><br />A. The professional attributes that you plan to use, and what aspirations you hope to fulfill, during your Peace Corps service.<br />B. Your strategies for working effectively with host country partners to meet expressed needs.<br />C. Your strategies for adapting to a new culture with respect to your own cultural background.<br />D. The skills and knowledge you hope to gain during pre-service training to best serve your future community and project.<br />E. How you think Peace Corps service will influence your personal and professional aspirations after your service ends.<br /><br />I don't think my statement is very well-written; I'm posting it so that people will know why I decided to go to the Peace Corps and what I hope to accomplish in Costa Rica. So without further ado, here it is:<br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp;Aspiration Statement</div><div style="text-align: center;">Brian Polhamus</div><div style="text-align: center;">Costa Rica</div><div style="text-align: center;">October 4th, 2010</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As I sit here in front of my computer with my cursor blinking, waiting for me to begin, I realize that my true aspiration at this moment is to simply complete this statement in a coherent manner! There are so many thoughts and feelings going through me right now; I feel as though it would be hard for me to put my finger on one and impossible to explain it fully. I'm excited but nervous, happy and yet a little sad, confident but scared, empowered and powerless... the only constant is a deep feeling of gratitude. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve with the Peace Corps; grateful to my friends and family who have given me support and who will continue to support me during my service. I'm grateful for another chance to go abroad and teach ESL and to take everything I learned from my first trip and apply it to this one. If I can build on the things I learned and accomplished during my time in South Korea, then I will consider my service in Costa Rica a success.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A:&nbsp; My reasons for joining the Peace Corps were not wholly unselfish, and as such, my aspirations are not either. Of course, I want to help the people of Costa Rica in any way I can. I'm going as an English teacher, so my main objective is to help my students and those around me learn as much English as possible while I'm there, but I also want to help in other ways, in any way. I've often thought about how awesome it would be to work on a well or bring power lines to a remote village, help build huts or dig ditches: anything I can do to help I want to do. I'm sure that these opportunities will be few and far between or even non-existent, but these are the things that I think would be the most meaningful contributions of all. Dirty jobs that have nothing at all to do with my job description but would significantly improve the lives of those around me, <u>that</u> is what I hope to do.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Having said that, I picked the Central/South American region specifically so that I could use what Spanish I already know and become fluent by the end of my term. I've taken six years of Spanish in middle school and high school and another two semesters in college and I think it's tragic how little I've used the language and how far from fluent I really am. I also realize that the Peace Corps will look great on a resume and would help me land a job when I return. Even though I've been reluctant to join the "real world" just yet and get a job, I know that someday I will have to and my service with the Peace Corps will help me to develop leadership skills and to become more patient and adaptable. Another aspiration of mine for my service is to become a better person. I'm not even sure what I mean by that or in what way I hope to improve but I think that the person I will become by the end of my service will be better than the person I am today.</div><div style="text-align: left;">In terms of what attributes I will bring to my job, I think flexibility and adaptability are crucial when working in a foreign country. It may not be necessary to do everything the way your host country co-workers would want you to, but it is important to take the time to understand their way of doing things and to pick your battles. The beginning is not the time to convince them your way is best or have a my-way-or-the-highway attitude. I've found that the easiest way to win the respect of your <i>colabradores</i> has little to do with work and much more to do with your willingness to experience their culture. Trying their foods or attemping to learn their language went so much further with my Korean partners than having good ideas at meetings ever could!</div><div style="text-align: left;">I honestly haven't had much time to think about how I'm going to take my teaching experiences from Korea and translate them to Costa Rica. Pronunciation and learning the Roman alphabet were the two biggest issues I found in Korea, but I don't really see those as being major issues for Spanish speakers. After I quit my job on the 10th, I'll have more time to think and plan for my classes. I can also consult the members of the Hispanic church that meets in my church's building on what they thought was difficult about learning English.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">B:&nbsp; One of my close friends whom I have known since childhood spent this summer in Uganda following around a Ugandan pastor he had met at seminary. My friend studies peacekeeping at school and the purpose of his trip was to experience peacekeeping in real life situations. When he came home and told me all about his trip, I was surprised to find that he had never engaged in any discussions or settlements or any real peacekeeping. I asked him why... that was the point of his trip, wasn't it? He told me something that his friend, the pastor, said to him over and over while he was there. He said that it didn't make sense for him to try to negotiate between sides if he did not understand them. He needed to understand the people, the culture, the language and the situation that this conflict arose from. It wouldn't help (in fact, it might hurt) if he knew one side but not the other. First, he had to spend a lot of time learning and observing before he could begin to make an impact and better the lives of the people he meant to serve. This is the strategy by which I hope to better the lives of Costa Ricans in my town. I will learn, listen and observe for a period of time; then I will work to meet their expressed needs.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">C:&nbsp; Adapting to a new culture while maintaining your own is a delicate balancing act. It's important to have a give-and-take mentality with regards to culture. I don't think anyone should ever have to completely abandon their culture, nor should they have to completely accept a new one. I think the best interactions between members of different cultures come from times of sharing. I had previously mentioned that one of my goals for my trip was to become fluent in Spanish. I think it would be great if I could convince my native friends to speak English to me while I spoke Spanish to them. We could teach each other our own versions of handshakes or games that we play. Sharing culture, in my mind, is a way to meld two or more cultures together to form a new subculture that everyone can gain from.</div><div style="text-align: left;">My strategy for adapting to Costa Rican culture is similar to my strategy for working with Costa Ricans: take some time to observe their culture, reflect on how it is similar to and/or different from mine and find a middle ground. I will keep an open mind and try new things, learn as much as I can, be as friendly and approachable as possible and just be myself. I will win over the people in this way and I'm sure they will win over me and we will learn so much more from each other than language.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">D:&nbsp; From reading the Volunteer handout, pre-service training sounds really intense and beneficial. Certainly, I will learn a lot on a broad range of topics, but I think the language and culture training are the most indispensable. I'm a bit worred about my teaching skill, but two years is plenty of time to practice and get better. I hope to learn enough about the culture before I start my service so that I don't make a bad first impression by doing or saying something taboo to my co-workers or my neighbors, or worse, my host family. That would be a disappointing way to start my service! Learning the language is huge though. I want to be able to have a real conversation with the natives by the time pre-service training is over. I would like to be able to get to know the people around me and to make myself known to them, also. And I think it would really help me to teach English if I understand where they're coming from with Spanish and to anticipate what problems they might have. In Korea, I was discouraged from learning their language and using it in the classroom because they wanted me to completely immerse my students in English. I understood their strategy and it definitely has its benefits, but I would never have found out why they had such great trouble pronouncing certain sounds if I hadn't taken up learning Korean. Only after I realized that their alphabet was missing letters and sounds common to the English language was I able to emphasize teaching those sounds in class. I was able to pinpoint the differences in the word structures of the two languages and teach them how English is similar and how it is different from Korean. I hope to learn Spanish much better than I ever learned Korean and to use that knowledge to bridge the gap between the two languages as I teach after my time in pre-service training.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">E:&nbsp; How will my experience with the Peace Corps affect my personal and professional aspirations after my service ends? That's a great question! Looking back on what got me to this point, the only thing I can say is that life is unpredictable and it seems as though the choices you make and the experiences you have build on each other, but in ways you wouldn't expect. I never thought that going to a Bible school for a year in New York would get me accustomed to being on my own in a world very different from my own to the point that I would even consider a trip to Ghana with my university. I never thought that I would catch the travel bug and go from a month's "vacation" in Ghana with my friends to living and teaching English in South Korea for a year. Everyone, including myself, assumed that I would come home from Korea satisfied with the experience I had there and get a job and settle down in the U.S. Now I'm about to begin a 27-month service with the Peace Corps in Costa Rica! These things are a far cry from what I thought I would be doing by this point in my life as a child (mathematician) or as a high-schooler (engineer) or when I was a Finance major in college, but I wouldn't have it any other way. The only prediction that I will afford myself at this time is that wherever I go and in whatever I do I will always be looking for ways to help people.</div>BCPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07281317196120422239noreply@blogger.com2